But the legislation also encourages states to set caps on the amount of time students spend on testing.
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“This is an early Christmas present”, Obama said.
Several Miami County local school superintendents agreed that it’s too soon to tell what exactly is in store in regards to changes in their district classrooms with the new federal education law.
Local school districts and the state will now have a seat at the table when it comes to standardized tests and underachieving schools.
Obama praised the ESSA as a law that focuses on boosting the high school graduation rate while preparing students for college and the workforce.
The measure also ends the waivers the Obama administration has given to more than 40 -exemptions granted around the more onerous parts of No Child when it became clear that requirements such as having all students proficient in reading and math by 2014 would not be met.
“Hopefully it will allow flexibility for local schools to make decisions about what is right for their district in the world of testing and accountability”, Herman said.
One aspect of the new education law that is not inducing cheers and might even be drawing quiet sighs from Catholic school officials, is its failure to include school choice funding.
“The new act was well over 1,100 pages long”.
On the more practical side, whether it represents true reform in American education remains to be seen.
The new law replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001.
As with NCLB, Every Student still requires annual testing in grades three through eight in math and reading, and a one-time test in high school.
Teachers unions won a point, in that the law doesn’t connect teacher evaluations to how students do on statewide achievement tests.
The federal government is giving the states more power under the Every Student Succeeds policy.
“We’re really saying to the creative genius of teachers and administrators working with parents and students: ‘Now, show us a better way than No Child Left Behind, ‘” Durbin said.
A reauthorization of the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the ESSA has been lauded as an end to the test-and-punish regime ushered in by NCLB and as a landmark rollback in federal involvement in public education.
Obama signed the bipartisan rewrite of No Child Left Behind at the White House on Thursday.
And while states and local districts, not the federal government, will now decide how to use that data, and what else to use with that data, in holding schools accountable, Mathis said he’s still unclear about how much flexibility state-level actors will really have in designing their accountability systems for schools.
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– Joy Resmovits, Los Angeles Times, contributed to this article.
