The Every Student Succeeds Act
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a US law that holds schools accountable for how students learn and achieve, and that focuses on the nation’s first education law for all public schools. The main aim of the Act is to make sure that public schools give quality education to all kids and to ensure that equal opportunities are provided for students who need special education services. The Act offers schools in different states more of a say in how to account for each student’s achievement. It gives focus to four categories of students who are; students in poverty, minorities, students with limited English language skills, and students who receive special education.
The ESSA was introduced by Lamar Alexander on April 30, 2015, and passed in December 2015, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and was reauthorized from the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The 114th United States Congress enacted ESSA under President Barack Obama’s administration. The Act requires all states to present their goals and standards and explain how they plan to accomplish them to the US Department of Education. State’s description of their plan must include; academic standards, school accountability, annual testing, goals for academic achievement, state and local report cards, and strategies for supporting and improving struggling schools.
States get to set their general education standards and coursework materials for their schools. The ESSA ensures that the criteria must be challenging in reading, mathematics, and science. The curriculum set by the states should prepare students for college and career ahead. The ESSA also requires states to test students. In reading and math, the Act requires students to be tested once a year, grades 3 to 8 and in high schools. States are also required to identify schools that are not performing to their goals and know how students are faring. The schools are to provide information on academic achievement, academic progress, and English language proficiency, and high school graduation rates.
The Act requires that states let parents get involved in the progress and accountability for schools. Parents are required to provide their feedback on how school districts deal with objectives for achievement, struggling students, and accountability. Parents also weigh-in, in on issues of report cards, which will inform the school on how the students are faring. The Every Student Succeeds Act provides funding for programs that assist schools in reaching their goals. There is the Literacy Education Grant Program, where the ESSA offers up to $160 million, which is for the purchasing of tools for teaching and reading, such as phonological awareness.
The Act also supports innovations to help students in learning and thinking differently. ESSA supports the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which offers different approaches for students to learn the same material. UDL gives students an equal chance to succeed in school. The Act encourages states to participate in personalized learning, which allows students to have a say at the learning strategies and learn at their own pace. The ESSA will be in effect from the 2017-2018 school year, and funding will be authorized in the 2020-2021 school year. ESSA has presented changes such as elimination of the requirement for teacher evaluation systems and linking results to students’ test scores.