The era of No Child Left Behind, the education policy which had bipartisan support and was officially endorsed and signed into law by George W. Bush back in 2001, has now officially come to an end, being replaced by the new initiative named Every Child Achieves Act. The new law was signed by President Barack Obama on December 9, having already passed votes in both the House and Senate after garnering bipartisan support. The new law will scale back the amount of influence the federal government has in education, while at the same time keeping certain provisions intact, such as having students tested in reading and math through grades 3-8 and also once in high school, with students also being tested in science three times through grades 3-12.
A big difference with the new law is that standardized tests will no longer be the sole determining factor of a school’s success rate, in regards to both the students and teachers- tests will still need to be reported based on race, income and disability status.
One controversial part of No Child Left Behind was the fact that a teacher’s evaluation was tied to their student’s test grades, but now under the Every Child Achieves Act, instead of the being decided on by the federal government, it will be up to the state and their discretion in regards to how to use those test scores in evaluating both a student and teacher. Schools will now be able to set their own performance standards as well, and will include in their assessments other factors such as student involvement and interest, availability of advance coursework, and school environment. Another controversial provision of NCLB, which was designed to make every student proficient in math and reading by 2014, were the federal sanctions doled out to schools that did not meet the required benchmarks, with worst-case scenarios ending with schools being closed. Eventually it became clear to lawmakers that NCLB was not working, due in part to its unrealistic goals and the sanctions deemed necessary due to teacher evaluations tied to student testing.
States are also required to continuously attempt to improve the bottom five percent of their schools and high schools that see less than two-thirds of their students graduate- schools nicknamed “dropout factories.” Education secretary ,Arne Duncan, has stated that the ESAA will “reduce over-testing and one-size-fits-all federal mandates.”
There has been skepticism concerning the bill as well. Democrats and Republicans continuously debate the merits of federal intervention, with Democrats citing the fact that NCLB and ESAA had their roots in a civil-rights era bill, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, (which was designed to help minorities and low-income families); Republicans argue for state control with little federal oversight. “The lesson of the civil rights movement and community is that the federal government is the defender of vulnerable children, and we are worried that with new state and local authority, vulnerable children are going to be at risk,” stated Liz King, director of education policy at the Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights. Still, others claim that state oversight is what is needed.
David Schuler, president of the AASA, School Superintendents Association, said that “this would allow those conversations to move from D.C., in most cases, to our state capital, and that’s where they should be.”
