Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

On December 10, 2015 President Obama signed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This act was a replacement for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. NCLB was a representation of the nation’s goals under president George Bush in which all children would be offered support in order to flourish academically. While ESSA has the same groundwork as NCLB Act, the government anticipates greater academic merit. Only time will tell if this will prove true, nevertheless ESSA will significantly change educational approaches in the upcoming years. During President Bush’s term, government became aware that American schooling needed major improvement. There was a need for a law which would improve the school system while using scores to evaluate students as well
Department of Education, n.d.) While President Obama made a promise of an improved law, ESSA and NCLB still proved to have many things in common. Key one is that NCLB Act indicated areas in need of enhancement and areas which were making progress. ESSA build on achievements set by preceding act and raised the criteria. Main modification is that The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 supported standards-based education. Under ESSA, the job of evaluating schools and deciding how to fix them will shift back to the states. NCLB required states to administer all grade level assessments which, when passed, would entitle them to federal school funding. Furthermore, NCLB gave the federal government a large role in education by allowing them to monitor testing, academic progress, report cards as well as the teacher qualification. As a way of improving, Every Student Succeeds Act would expand the responsibility of each state over schools, while reducing the federal test-based system of No Child Left Behind Act. This new law gives the power of education back to each state and allowes them to implement their own educational standards. President Obama and his administration had an objective of generating a
Schools were punished for under-performing and producing results which were unsatisfactory. In order to improve test scores instead of learning administrators focused on passing. Every Student Succeeds Act allows each state the power to be accountable for its system. While this is quite an improvement one must ask will all the states set high goals or just very low ones in order to label all kids proficient. Correspondingly, government failed to find a way to improve conditions in which education takes place. They failed to realize that in reality, many kids do not come to school ready to learn. They are too often distracted with things which take place at home. Poverty level in 2014 for children under 18 is 21.1 percent. (United States Census Bureau, 2014). Most of the underperforming schools still have high levels of students who do not have their basic needs met. It is absurd to think that we can change our school system just by changing the way how we test the child. It seems that the growing achievement gaps will yet again leave poor and minority students in failing school and a devised system of testing will not be able to fix