What Obama's new education bill means for American kids

It’s no secret that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the federal law for K-12 education, was long overdue. Multiple attempts to rewrite the No Child Left Behind Act since 2007 had fallen flat. So last week, when President Obama signed new legislation into law—the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)—there were lots of reasons to break out the confetti.

Nobody was holding their breath for broad bipartisanship, given the gridlock that our current Congress is known for, and during a primary season to boot. ESSA’s passage is a clear testament to what’s possible when bipartisan collaboration is at its best. I applaud the leadership of Senator Alexander (R-TN) and Senator Murray (D-WA) along with Congressman Kline (R-MN) and Congressman Scott (D-VA) in leading the charge for our nation’s students. 

As a parent of two kids and the co-founder of KIPP, a national college-preparatory public charter school network serving nearly 70,000 students, I’ve been advocating for policy changes for years to make it possible to better serve our students. While we’ll be unpacking the contents of the new law for years to come, from my vantage point as an educator, I believe that ESSA can play a vital role in creating an education system that brings us closer to the day when all students, including those growing up in poverty, receive an excellent education.  

 No piece of legislation is ever perfect and work cannot end with final passage. But, here are three bright spots in which I believe ESSA will shape public education for the better:

Annual assessments

Building off of the precedent set by the previous law, ESSA maintains annual, statewide assessments in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school for all students. Schools will continue to be required to publicly report their results by students' race, family income, and disability status. These annual, statewide assessments are necessary means to gauge how schools and children progress each year and, in turn, inform parents, educators and policymakers so we can all make good decisions about schools, interventions, and resources to improve education for each student. At the same time, the states will have more freedom over how they set up their tests and use the data for their accountability systems (see below)—so I hope there is less focus on testing as the end and more focus on testing as a means. Testing and being informed by the test data is a good thing; spending classroom instructional time preparing for annual tests instead of teaching the curriculum is a bad thing. I hope ESSA will help us get this balance right.

Accountability

The new bill gives states and school districts much more authority to oversee their own schools, while at the same time requiring them to take action to turn around the bottom 5 percent of struggling schools.
Statewide accountability systems must base their school ratings on the progress of all groups of students, and take action when any group of students is consistently underperforming. This will ensure that States do not have the option of sitting on their hands if sub-groups of students are not receiving a quality education. Importantly, this new legislation maintains the underlying purpose of ESEA as a civil rights law that provides interventions and safeguards for those that have historically been treated unfairly. 

Investing in What Works

ESSA codifies several grant programs into law that the Obama Administration has helped to champion that are already making a marked difference in our nation’s classrooms such as the Charter Schools Program grants for the replication and expansion of high-quality schools, the Supporting Effective Educator Development grant program, and the Education Innovation and Research Grants program. With continued investment directed toward organizations that have proven their success with students, we can support significant growth of the highly successful schools, programs, and ideas that more students and families so badly need. As a nation, we must continue to figure out how to improve educational outcomes and prepare all students for success in college, career, and life.

As I said, no law is perfect, and it will be up to all of us to help ensure that ESSA lives up to its promise. But these three elements give me hope that we’re turning a corner for students across the nation. Building on the higher expectations found in the No Child Left Behind Act, we have legislation that addresses where students are now, and gives us the tools we need to make sure that schools are preparing them to lead lives of opportunity.