For all the hype surrounding the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), it seems unlikely to produce many changes actually visible on the ground, wrote Alia Wong in December 2015 for The Atlantic. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia already had waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB), so most students nationally were already learning under a system that had rejected much of NCLB's most onerous provisions. States with waivers were allowed to set their own goals for raising achievement, devise their own strategies for turning around struggling schools, and design their own methods for measuring student progress -- as they can with ESSA. The new law does contain novel elements, however. ESSA for the first time ever seeks to expand access to preschool by including $250 million in annual funding for early-childhood education. It also authorizes funding to scale up evidence-based strategies to improve student outcomes, and other initiatives that promote innovative reform. In many ways, what most conservatives seem to celebrate about ESSA is that it's replacing President Obama's waiver system. It was through waivers (and the Race to the Top grant program) that the administration mandated test-score-based teacher evaluations and all but required participating states to adopt the Common Core. ESSA makes clear that the federal government can't mandate teacher evaluations or standards. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.