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CHAPTER 2

The Passage of ESSA

By the time NCLB came up for reauthorization in 2007, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who could agree on little else, were united in their dislike of the law. More and more schools were deemed failing. Conservatives were concerned about federal overreach in a matter they felt should be reserved for the states. Liberals were concerned that the NCLB provision that endorsed and funded the creation of more charter schools, many of which are run by private companies, and the inevitability of every school failing represented an attempt to abandon public education and privatize schooling. They also objected to the fact that the law was never fully funded. But despite common distaste for the law, politicians on the right and left could not agree on a plan for amending it.

As mentioned in chapter 1, the Obama administration tied approval of state petitions for waivers from NCLB sanctions to plans that reflected its agenda for education reform. This tactic only magnified the opposition of those against any attempt of the federal government to influence K–12 education.

Even though the idea of Common Core State Standards and national assessments originated with U.S. governors and chief state school administrators, conservatives disapproved of the U.S. Department of Education’s efforts to tie those initiatives to state waivers. The department’s insistence that teacher evaluation, retention, and compensation be tied to a single test that purported to demonstrate a teacher’s impact on a student’s learning was attacked by teacher unions and denounced by almost all education assessment experts.

Yet, year after year, Congress was unable to come up with an alternative to NCLB and RTTT. Democrats wanted to remove test results as the way to evaluate teacher effectiveness and guarantees that the law would protect racial minorities and children of poverty, the targets of the original ESEA in 1965. Republicans wanted states and local districts to be free to establish their own education policies with little or no federal intervention or influence (Huetteman & Rich, 2015).

Finally, in 2015, the two parties were able to agree on a compromise bill with overwhelming bipartisan support—85 to 12 in the Senate and 359 to 64 in the House of Representatives—which later became ESSA.

Democrats were pleased that states would still require schools to test all students in grades 3–8 and once in high school in mathematics, language arts, and science. They also were pleased that schools would continue to report student scores by subgroups, so student performance in general could not mask the underachievement of a particular group; states would no longer be required to use test results in evaluating teachers; and test scores would become less of a focus under the new bill (Severns, 2015).

Republicans were pleased that the new law dramatically reduced the role of the federal government in K–12 education. In a thinly disguised rebuke of former Secretary of Education Duncan, one of the major changes under the law is a reduction of the influence any secretary of education might have on policy. The secretary is expressly prohibited from the following.

■ Influencing the adoption of any particular standards

■ Impacting the nature of assessments

■ Prescribing any aspect of the accountability system

■ Advocating for specific school supports or improvement strategies

■ Prescribing any aspect of educator evaluation systems as measures of effectiveness

The federal government could no longer prescribe goals or punishments. States assumed authority for establishing their own standards, tests, goals, accountability systems, and what to do with schools that underperformed (Klein, 2016a).

ESSA is a clear departure from federal laws and regulations that extended the reach of the federal government in K–12 education.

ESSA is a clear departure from federal laws and regulations that extended the reach of the federal government in K–12 education. While NCLB required states to have academic standards and accompanying tests, and RTTT explicitly provided financial incentives for grant recipients to adopt the Common Core State Standards, ESSA categorically prohibits sanctions and penalties on matters involving standards, curriculum, assessments, and teacher evaluations. Senator Lamar Alexander, a sponsor of the legislation, said that it restored “to states, school districts, classroom teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement” (Rubin, 2015). The New York Times agreed and characterized the law as a restoration of local control of schooling (Huetteman & Rich, 2015).

The Wall Street Journal described the law as representing “the largest devolution of federal control” to the states in twenty-five years (Wong, 2015). The Brown Center on Education Policy, however, bemoaned the federal retreat from U.S. classrooms and the fact that the federal government’s fifty-year effort of trying to improve educational opportunities for poor and minority students had accomplished so little (Shober, 2015). The Brown Center, part of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, notes that the timing of ESEA in 1965 was closely related to civil rights legislation, and that local states and school districts had not distinguished themselves in education policies that benefitted all students. The center is, therefore, alarmed at what it regarded as a retreat from federal responsibility that is implied in ESSA.

In essence, ESSA includes some old ideas from NCLB but combines them with improved ideas, giving the states more flexibility.

Something Old and Something New

NCLB required every state to adopt academic standards in reading, mathematics, and science. It also stipulated annual testing in reading and mathematics of all students in grades 3–8 and once in high school. Teachers were asked to administer science tests once in grades 3–5, once in grades 6–8, and once in high school. In addition, schools were required to issue an annual report card on the achievement of all students as well as subgroups, such as special education, racial minorities, English learners, and children living in poverty (Klein, 2015b).

ESSA continues the NCLB policies of annual testing and reporting but also expands subgroup reports on test scores and graduation rates to include students who are foster children, homeless, or from military families (Klein, 2016a). Gone are the federal government mandates for annual yearly progress and stipulated penalties for failure to meet proficiency targets. States are free to set their long-term achievement goals, measurements of progress, and what consequences, if any, they apply to a school for poor performance.

Gone too is the idea that governments should determine a school’s failure or success solely from student performance on a single comprehensive test. Under ESSA, states can opt to administer shorter-interim assessments throughout the year that result in a single score rather than one comprehensive test. They also can choose to substitute nationally recognized tests, such as the SAT or ACT, for their high school state achievement test.

Additionally, states can include factors beyond test scores to assess the quality of a school. Schools must use at least three academic indicators, such as student proficiency on state tests, student growth on state tests, and English language proficiency. At the high school level, schools must also include graduation rates. But states can include other factors, such as student engagement, faculty engagement, school climate and safety, access to and completion of advanced coursework, postsecondary readiness, or whatever else the state feels is significant to assess the quality of a school. No longer will schools be labeled as failing if they miss an achievement target for a single group of students. States can take a more holistic look to determine whether schools are succeeding or failing.

States can take a more holistic look to determine whether schools are succeeding or failing.

Every three years, the states must report on Title I schools among the lowest 5 percent, high schools with graduation rates of less than 67 percent, and Title I schools with one or more low-performing subgroups among the lowest 5 percent. Local districts are responsible for providing the plan and assistance to improve these low-performing schools. If the district is unable to help these schools meet improvement criteria, the state is required to step in and implement more rigorous action.

NCLB’s mandate that classrooms be staffed with highly qualified teachers has been replaced by a provision that all teachers working in Title I-A programs must meet their state’s certification and licensure requirements, and poor and minority students in schools receiving the funds must not be taught by ineffective teachers at higher rates than other students. The controversial RTTT stipulations that teacher evaluations include evidence of student growth on a standardized achievement test and support merit pay cease to exist, although states may elect to make them part of their teacher evaluation process. Because in many states these provisions required legislative action to apply for RTTT grants, it will take legislative action to reverse the policy.

An Opportunity for Change

Senator Alexander painted a rosy picture of the impact of the law when he stated, “What I believe is that when we take the handcuffs off, we’ll unleash a whole flood of innovation and ingenuity classroom by classroom, state by state, that will benefit children” (Klein, 2016b).