How Every Student Succeeds Act Affects Children’s Education
Abstract
The federal government had put a lot of emphasis and essentialities on the assessment of students’ basic knowledge of languages, mathematics, and sciences such that it ignored the whole essence of the schooling system; to educate and to prepare students for college and carrier paths. The No Child Left behind Act saw to it that students were intensely assessed in schools; it was proficient but ineffective. The parents, the teachers, and the students complained and demanded a change in the education system. The federal government, with the aim of ensuring that all students were treated equally, including those who had special education needs enacted the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. The Act has been efficient since it has been encouraging all-round learning in schools, reduced the undue pressure among students, and has also given students a chance of expressing what they have learned in the classrooms in various ways. The federal government gave the states the mandate of governing the academic operations in public schools in individual states to ensure that all students get personalized and equal chances of education. So far, the Act has been efficient apart from the mishaps with the disabled students, especially on determining who is disabled and in management of harassment and bullying in schools.
Description of the Problem
Many parents had started complaining and resisting the increased standardized testing in schools and required that the federal government would be lesser involved in the U.S. education system. Also, the National Education Association’s president had continuously complained of the inefficiencies of the No Child Left Behind Act, which was based on one size fits basis.Most educators had also been raising concerns over the incompetence of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. According to them, NCLB, due to a lot of standardization tests, drained creative approaches to class material among the teachers and students since it required a lot of instruction time as teachers strived to ensure that the students were ready for exams (Act, 2002). Also, it caused a lot of stress among educators and students due to the mandatory requirement of teachers to ensure that their students passed the exams. The federal government put undue pressure on requiring that students passed exams (Black, 2017), and the pressure led to a domino effect of costing the students their creativity as they strived to excel in the exams.
As a result of the continuously raised complaints, the NCLB was deemed ineffective such that it necessitated the need for a modified policy that was not all about taking assessment tests but also retaining and expanding creativity among educators and students. It also necessitated the need for a policy that would cater to allstudentsregardless of their economic, social, or special education needs, a chance for equal and quality personalized education. Since the federal government could not micromanage the activities of all the schools in the nation, it passed the mandate of managing the school activities, performances, and academic achievement and progress in schools to states through the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Values in terms of how the problem is understood from different perspectives
Parents complained that the education system had put so much emphasis on the assessment of students through tests instead of concentrating on equipping students with academic knowledge that would help them in future college years and career paths. The most affected parents were those of childrenwith special needs since the system was not fair enough for their children. Some states favored the disabled students in terms of sitting for alternative assessments, while some were indifferent all together. On the other hand, the learners felt pressured to study for the exams and to pass them. Most students said that all they knew was how to answer exam questions and had no clue on how to apply the knowledge acquired in class. The educators as well complained that they were so pressured to make the students pass the exams, which weakened their delivery of classwork material and creativity in class. As a result of the complaints, poor performances, and reduced creativity in general classwork, the federal government, in partnership with the state’s government, considered the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2015 to solve the raised problems and to ensure more equal opportunities for all students.
Past efforts to address the problem
To address the problem of lack of or reduced creativity in classes among educators and students as a result of failed personalized learning, a lot of standardized tests, and unequal treatment of students with disabilities, the federal government has made efforts over the years through policies and laws in the education sector. In 1965, the federal government enacted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to provide funding to elementary and secondary education public schools for professional development, provision of teaching materials and resources to ensure proper and efficient learning in schools. The Act aimed to ensure that all students had equal access to education to narrow the achievement gap between financially well and impoverished schools. The government believed that by enacting the Act, all students in the nation would have equal access and personalized creative education. However, the Act did not fully meet the needs of the students since disadvantaged students such as bilingual and immigrant who had difficulties accessing education, and also it did not include technology education in its curriculum.
In 2001, the Act was further reauthorized to the No Child Left Behind Act, which aimed at improving the quality of education in the nation by introducing a standardized based education system. The Act was reinforced by the fact that by developing assessments in basic skills to all students in all schools in the nation and offering federal funding to states in terms of how best the tests were passed could improve the overall better achievement in education among students. The Act became ineffective after some time since it primarily pressured students and teachers to study and teach for the sake of passing exams (Behind, 2002). It also reduced creativity in classrooms, and students who were not very gifted academically suffered most. The Act did not also provide for an appropriate education model for talented students; hence it was deemed unrealistic. The Act required 100% proficiency amongst educators and students, which, due to diverse variables such as economic, social, and the student’s academic capabilities levels, could not be achieved.
By 2014, it had been discovered that the Act was not benefiting the state whatsoever since due to the incentives and penalties that the federal government imposed on schools that failed to meet the requirements of the Act. For instance, schools had started reducing the statistics that did not favor them; in case of school dropout cases, some schools received 1000 first-year students at the beginning of the year, and by the end of four years, there would only be, 300 students as was the case with Sharpstown High School, Texas (Fránquiz & Ortiz, 2016). All the other students haddropped out, but the statistics did not show the number of missing students. Such false statistics led to wrong decisions in the states as well as in the nation over how the education status could be improved in the country.
To correct the problems, the top-ranking educators in the government decided to reauthorize the Act and to formulate it so that it could encourage honesty, creativity, and personalized teaching and learning in the education system. The reauthorization would also ensure that the education system would be not only assessment based but also a platform for preparing students for college as well as career paths. In that light, the government developed the Every Student Succeeds Act and gave the mandate of school governance to states to ensure that all the schools in individual states are managed effectively to enhance academic excellence.
Political forces, strategies, and roles of recipients to the development of policy
After the realization of the fact that narrowing the role of the U.S. federal government in public schools would improve the quality and personalization of education on students, the government through a bipartisan agreement of both chambers of Congress modified the previously existing No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. it was upgraded to the Every Student Succeeds Act in December 2015.
The bill was written by Lamar Alexander, who was the Education Secretary under President Bush and Patty Murray of the HELP committee with the aim of making it pass through Congress and get President Obama’s signature. The bill, however, brought controversies in House as well as the Senate regarding how schools would be evaluated and how the states could determine the schools that were performing poorly (Plan, 2015). After a lot of negotiations, both chambers agreed to give the federal government the mandate of formulating a framework of evaluating schools, intervening in school programs, and on how to identify and help struggling schools. They also included a pre-k program to ensure that students were not unnecessarily exempted from sitting for tests. Speaker Paul Ryan massively supported the bill, and after an 85-12 vote, President Obama signed it on 10th December 2015.
Description of the policy in its current form
ESSA is currently the main education law for all public schools in the nation, and it aims at ensuring that all the students get a quality education regardless of their social, economic, and capabilities basis. It makes the schools accountable for how students learn and make academic achievements. This is done by requiring all schools to first group the students using factors such as poverty rates, the race, special needs education as well as the children who have limited English language skills (Plans, 2015). The grouping allows the schools to have an overall image of the kind of students they have and the type of education services required. It also allows parents whose children require special education services to get a better opportunity of ensuring that the needs of the children are taken into account. By so doing, all schools get the bigger picture of the students they are dealing with, thus encouraging schools to adopt personalized teaching.
The policy requires all states to decide the education plans that their respective schools should adapt to a framework provided by the federal government. The programs are required to have set academic standards and coursework for all grades in the schools in the state. The standards are expected to be challenging enough to prepare students for college and career years for all students, including those who require special education services (Malin et al. 2017). The plans also require states to prepare annual tests for science, mathematics, and reading from grades 3 to 8 and once in high school to test the students’ proficiency and teachers’ professionalism in learning and teaching, respectively (Darling-Hammond et al. 2016). Besides, the law requires states to hold schools accountable for how students are performing to ensure that underperforming schools are brought in the limelight. School performance is gauged depending on the school’s academic achievement and progress, proficiency in the English language, and the rates of graduation in high schools. The policy also requires states to have goals for academic success as metrics for whether students are performing or not. Besides, the plan includes sub-plans for improving schools that are struggling and parents’ involvement in the students learning programs. It also provides grants to states depending on the application forms and the kind of problems that the school experiences. For instance, in 2019, the literacy grants amounted to $160 million and was allocated for evidence-based literacy in needy states.
History of Amendments
ESSA is a modified form of the NCLB act of 2001, which is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The Act was reauthorized in 1994 by Clinton’s bill ensure since it did not meet the technology education requirements as the times by then required. ESEA was later amended in 2001 to increase the level of assessment and evaluation of students in schools to increase academic achievement and progress by compelling educators and students to prepare for certain assessments, as per the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. However, the Act, though proficient, was not sufficient since it reduced the levels of creativity in classrooms, failed to consider the weak students academically as well as the needs of students with disabilities. It was, therefore, reauthorized in 2015, as ESSA, by President Obama’s government to encourage creativity in the education system, ensure equality of education among all students, including those with disabilities.
Effect on Racial and Ethnic Groups
After the reauthorization of the Act, every race and ethnic group can now, with no fear, have access to educational opportunities. All students from subgroups, significant racial and ethnic groups, are given a chance by the states to have access to education. The states consider students from underprivileged backgrounds, the immigrants especially, and offer their schools grants to increase the quality of education(Darling-Hammond et al. 2016). The federal government requires states to improve the status of underprivileged schools. All state governments strive to ensure that minor races and disadvantaged students are offered better learning environments.
Analysis of the efficacy of the problem and recommendations
Educators of K-12 students have affirmed the efficacy of ESSA since it has made schools continue to have the flexibility of teaching students in diverse and personalized ways through the innovation of ways to help all students, including those who have learning and thinking differences. For instance, the policy has led to the development of Universal Design for Learning, which exposes students to diverse ways of understanding the same material for all students regardless of whether they have special education needs or not (Stosich, 2016). It gives students a chance to express what they know in various ways, thus giving them equal opportunities for academic achievement in schools. It has also encouraged schools and teachers to embrace personalized learning, which allows the teachers to meet students where they are, learn at their own pace and communicate their perspective of the learning process and what they have learned hitherto.Besides, civil rights leaders confirm that unlike the No Child Left Behind policy, ESSA provides students an all-rounded education since it dropped the core academic subjects’ term and now allows students to study what they’d love to (Darrow, 2016).
However, in relation to students with disabilities, the Act does not provide definitive national guidelines for states. For instance, it does not define who the disabled students are. It leaves the states with the obligation of determining who the disabled are to identify the students who are qualified to sit for the alternate assessment tests. This would be challenging since most states have different definitions of disabled which means that it would be hard to compare students with one another due to the incorrect interpretation. Similarly, since ESSA has recognized the fact that disabled student are affected by bullying and harassment in schools, it requires that the state should come up with plans to reduce and terminate the cases of harassment. However, it is explicit that various states would have different plans for the same; some programs may be more effective than others, which implies that the disabled would not be exposed to similar environments, and this might affect their studies.
References
Act, N. C. L. B. (2002). No child left behind Act of 2001. Publ. L, 107-110.
Behind, N. C. L. (2002). No child left behind act. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
Black, D. W. (2017). Abandoning the federal role in education: The every student succeeds Act. Calif. L. Rev., 105, 1309.
Fránquiz, M. E., & Ortiz, A. A. (2016). Co-editors’ introduction: Every student succeeds Act—A policy shift.
Darling-Hammond, L., Bae, S., Cook-Harvey, C. M., Lam, L., Mercer, C., Podolsky, A., & Stosich, E. L. (2016). Pathways to new accountability through the Every Student Succeeds Act. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.
Darrow, A. A. (2016). The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) What it means for students with disabilities and music educators. General Music Today, 30(1), 41-44.
Malin, J. R., Bragg, D. D., & Hackmann, D. G. (2017). College and career readiness and the Every Student Succeeds Act. Educational Administration Quarterly, 53(5), 809-838.
Plans, A. (2015). The every student succeeds act: Explained. Education Week.