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Although growing partisanship has characterized Congress for the better part of the last two decades, there is still one area where members of both political parties find ways to work together and that is education reform. Traditionally, bipartisan coalitions have been instrumental in crafting federal education legislation, whether that be the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the formation of the Department of Education in 1979, or the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Last week, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate approved a reauthorization of the ESEA that had been left in limbo since 2007. The reauthorization bill – dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act – will replace NCLB in the fall of 2017 and will give states more flexibility when designing assessments, measuring school performance, and evaluating teachers. In many ways, it is a repudiation of the top-down structure imposed by NCLB, which aimed to use testing to measure American schools and identify troubled ones. However, the bill will retain NCLB’s testing requirements, so the American education system’s culture of standardized testing is not completely going away.
This topic brief will explain the significant events that led to the creation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, compare the bill with the old NCLB Act, and then assess some of the criticisms that have been levied against the bill.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
The Road to the Every Student Succeeds Act
Historically, education has been a local, rather than a federal, priority. Some of the education disparities seen in America today date back to the colonial period when Northeastern states placed a greater emphasis on education than their Southern counterparts, largely because the Puritans that settled the Northeast placed an emphasis on an individual’s ability to read the Bible. Whereas Southern colonies (and later states) were unwilling to spend money on a public education system, colonies such as Massachusetts came to require towns with fifty or more persons to pay taxes and establish schools that all children could attend. By the 1850s Northern states such as Massachusetts made public school attendance mandatory, while Southern states would wait until the early twentieth century to enact such legislation. The lack of a federal role in education was evident in the short lifespan of the first Department of Education, which briefly received cabinet status after the American Civil War. The Department enjoyed this distinction for just one year as critics charged that its collection of statistics was a waste of federal dollars and not worth the President’s attention. Some attitudes about the federal government’s role in education began to change during the Second World War, with The Economist writing on December 12 that the federal government provided funds to needy states to improve their public schools. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s led to the creation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which provided millions of dollars for state education systems in an attempt to alleviate poverty and close achievement gaps between white and minority students. However, hostility to a larger federal role in education remained as the Department of Education was restored to cabinet status in 1979 by a very slim vote in the House (210-206) and reluctant legislators were only won over by arguments that the Secretary of Education would not be able to dictate policies to local schools.
Increased worries about Americans ability to compete in a global marketplace have led to anxieties about the state of America’s public schools. In fact, one of the reasons that the Department of Education was not killed as a cabinet department for the second time during the Reagan administration was the publication of the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform in 1983. A Nation at Risk warned that America’s schools were in dire shape and failing to teach students necessary writing and mathematics skills. It is very likely that those reading this brief have had their education shaped by the recommendations made by A Nation at Risk, which argued that high school students take four years of English, three years of mathematics, three years of history, and three years of science. Concerns about the continued struggles of American students relative to peers in Asia and Europe fueled the accountability movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s that sought to better assess the nation’s schools through standardized testing. The goal of reformers was to use tests to measure a child’s progress in elementary, middle, and high school and identify failing schools that were in need of reform. Radical reformers envisioned systems where poorly performing schools would be closed, students would receive vouchers where they could attend other education institutions (including private schools), and linking teacher pay to test scores. Some even advocated for the establishment of private academies run like businesses that would be compensated by the federal government or the states for favorable education outcomes.
When George W. Bush was elected president in 2000 he envisioned a much stronger federal role in education, one that would be based on education reforms that he enacted while serving as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2001. Although the Bush presidency is now thought of as a divisive period in American politics and one that came to be identified with foreign wars, Bush originally sought to be a more domestic-focused president, having told viewers in one of his presidential debates with then-Vice President Al Gore that America needed to cease its “nation building” in foreign lands. The September 11 terrorist attacks changed the focus of the Bush administration over the long-term, but in late 2001, Bush worked with congressional Democrats that were also concerned about American schools. Deciding to break with teachers’ unions, Democratic legislators such as Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts rallied votes behind what became known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which Bush signed into law on January 8, 2002. The bill promised more federal funding to states, but came with conditions that children had to be tested each year in reading and math from third to eighth grade and once in high school. Schools were to then take the data from testing and report the performance of sub-groups such as racial minorities, English as a Secondary Language (ESL) students, and students with learning disabilities. These groups had often been neglected by state testing in the past, with some schools using the data from other populations to mask the poor performance of these students. The law mandated that schools needed “highly qualified educators” in fields such as science, math, and English, and demanded that schools show annual yearly progress (AYP) in student scores. Schools that failed to show progress could be taken over by state officials, staff and administrators could lose their jobs, and some schools could even be closed. The ultimate goal of the legislation was for all American students to reach proficiency by 2014.
Almost immediately, critics blasted NCLB’s mandates and proposals. Teachers’ unions said that the law focused far too much on testing. Critics noted that some schools cut art, theatre, and physical education programs in an effort to get students to test better and parents became concerned during NCLB’s existence that schools were testing their children too often. USA Today writes on December 11 that Democrats came to turn on the law, arguing that Republicans never adequately funded it. For example, NCLB was supposed to give states $32 billion, but Congress only appropriated about 66% of the intended figure, with Congress recently allocating $23 billion under the law. Republicans also came to hate the bill, arguing that its testing mandates created an environment where Washington bureaucrats were trying to influence state education policy. NCLB was supposed to be reauthorized in 2007 since the NCLB bill was a reauthorization of ESEA (such reauthorizations are supposed to occur every five years or so), but Congress could not come up with a solution for fixing it. According to The Los Angeles Times on December 10, when Barack Obama was elected president he demanded that Congress agree to a new reauthorization bill by the end of 2011, but Congress missed this deadline. As a result, the Obama administration encouraged states to apply for waivers from NCLB’s mandates in return for implementing federally-recommended reforms that included linking teacher evaluations to test scores. The Obama administration also used the Department of Education to offer financial incentives to states for implementing “college and career-ready” standards that were part of the Common Core curriculum. This program was called “Race to the Top.” Such policies offered a stopgap in federal education legislation since NCLB had not been reauthorized, but critics alleged that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was trying to write American education policy via fiat.
The Obama administration’s push for tougher standards and the Common Core, though, soon put it at odds with teachers and parents throughout the country that came to decry the Common Core’s rigor and methods. In fact, anger at Common Core may have helped lead to the Every Student Succeeds Act as it galvanized far-right Republicans that were affiliated with the Tea Party to rewrite federal education law, thereby giving them something in common with Democrats that wanted to revise NCLB to cater to teachers’ unions. Politico writes on December 11 that the two engineers of the Every Student Succeeds Act were Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), both of whom have experience in the education field (Alexander served as President George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Education while Murray was a former preschool teacher). Alexander worked with Representative John Kline (R-MN) in the House and began to slowly back off Republican demands that included voucher provisions and a much less reduced role for the federal government in setting any mandates on local schools. By September, both sides began hammering out a deal whereby the Republicans caved into providing more funding for preschool and allowing the federal government to offer a variety of options that states could pursue in measuring school performance. In return, Republicans gained limitations on the advocacy of the Secretary of Education and the ability of states to determine how to fix schools. Thus, as a result of both sides deciding to give up some of their staunch ideological positions, a bill was found agreeable to many members of the House and Senate and President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act last week.
Comparing the Every Student Succeeds Act with No Child Left Behind
Extempers should be prepared to discuss how the Every Student Succeeds Act is similar and different to NCLB. First, the standardized testing regimen of NCLB is not changing. As noted previously, NCLB required that states test students each year in third through eighth grade in reading and writing. Students also had to be tested once in high school. The Every Student Succeeds Act calls for this same level of testing, but the difference is that states get more leeway in how tests are administered and what tests are used. USA Today explains that states now have the ability to break a single assessment down into smaller tests. Also, states are free to used nationally administered tests such as the ACT or SAT as accountability measures. This provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act is seen as a defeat for forces that wished to eliminate burdensome standardized testing in schools.
However, anti-testing forces won some reprieve in that states are now able to measure a school’s academic progress by other “non-academic” indicators. Under NCLB schools were evaluated primarily based on their testing data and their ability to move minority subgroups into higher levels of achievement when taking those tests. Now, states still have to use three academic indicators when measuring school accountability, but they have flexibility when choosing those indicators. Education Week writes on December 7 that schools can have their academic progress measured based on testing proficiency, their ability to aid students in English-language proficiency, and closing achievement gaps. Aside from having three academic indicators, schools must also be measured on a “non-academic” indicator, and this can include student engagement, parental engagement, teacher engagement, a school’s offering of dual credit or advanced placement coursework, and school climate. The goal is to allow schools to show that they are helping students achieve learning outcomes that testing cannot measure and break from the NCLB’s testing culture.
Both pieces of legislation mandate specific interventions for struggling schools. Under NCLB, schools that continually failed to show annually yearly progress over a five year period would have to remove staff, become a charter school, or consider closing. Some of these onerous restrictions are removed under the Every Student Succeeds Act, but extempers should keep in mind that states can keep these penalties if they choose to do so. As a replacement for meeting AYP goals, since the goal of proficiency for all students vanishes under the new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act mandates that states must intervene in the lowest 5% of schools or schools that fail to graduate at least two-thirds of their students. This is to target so-called “dropout factories” that are schools with high attrition rates.
Additionally, both bills require test data to be broken down by subgroups so that reformers can continue to identify achievement gaps that need to be remedied. U.S. News & World Reports writes on December 9 that President Obama threatened to veto the bill if this provision of NCLB was removed and New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker threatened a filibuster on the same grounds. The concern of President Obama and Senator Booker was that if this data was not published and disaggregated that states would revert to ignoring the needs of minority students. Despite criticisms of NCLB, U.S. News and World Report writes in a separate article on December 9 that the law did produce a reduction in achievement gaps, with the 2012 National Assessment of Educational Progress showing minority gains in reading and mathematics. Therefore, one of the goals of President George W. Bush under NCLB will remain, arguably preserving one of the best aspects of the old law.
There are a few smaller provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act that make it different than NCLB. First, the powers of the Secretary of Education have been curtailed. The Secretary is disallowed from endorsing or incentivizing states to adopt a specific curriculum, a parting shot at Duncan’s advocacy of Common Core under the “Race to the Top” program. Second, The Wall Street Journal writes on December 9 that more funding is being directed at pre-kindergarten education program via a competitive grant program where states can aim to improve coordination, quality, and access to early childhood education for students from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds. The Huffington Post adds on December 8 that this is the first time since the enactment of ESEA that early childhood education has been deemed as an important federal and state effort and this may eventually pave the way for the enactment of universal preschool, a priority for the Democratic Party. And lastly, The Atlantic writes on December 9 that states must have academic standards that are “college and career-ready,” thereby constituting the first time in any ESEA reauthorization that this has been deemed a priority. This is seen as an embrace of tougher standards that should better prepare American students for the rigor of college work and reduce the number of students that have to take remedial courses when they get to the post-secondary level.
Criticisms of the Every Student Succeeds Act
While legislators on both sides of the aisle praised the Every Student Succeeds Act last week, there are some that believe the legislation will fail to improve the American education system and may actually make it worse. One critique of the bill is that it will make it harder to identify bad schools. The Los Angeles Times explains on December 10 that the non-academic indicators that states must also use to measure schools such as school climate are vague. The fact that states only need to remediate the lowest 5% of schools is also concerning as that number is quite low and mediocre schools may lose an incentive to keep up with their more advanced counterparts.
Another worry of education reformers is that the Every Student Succeeds Act reverts to a quasi-local control model of education and that is something that has generally failed to work in the past. One of the problems of having fifty states and various localities make education policy is that there is a lack of consistency across the country. For example, a student in Massachusetts will be receiving a different standard of education than a student in Texas. In fact, while some states are adequately funding their public education systems, states such as Mississippi have been embroiled in political battles over the failure of their state legislatures to fully fund their public school systems. The push for the Common Core was supposed to remedy this situation, but the inability of the Secretary of Education to push a specific curriculum will impair work toward a national standard. Vox writes on December 11 that the education a child receives will depend on where they live and that the “most important figures now in education policy will be governors, state superintendents, state legislators, and districts leaders” instead of Congress and the Department of Education. It is also notable that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has raised concerns that the push for local control may negatively affect minority populations, which some states neglected prior to NCLB. After all, The Economist warns that it is unclear what the federal government can do if a state does not submit an adequate school accountability plan, so this may push some states to adopt policies that the federal government does not favor. And The New York Times writes on December 10 that former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings warned that the new law removes pressure on states, thereby recreating the circumstances that produced the school accountability movement in the first place.
Some traditional criticisms of NCLB have also been leveled at the Every Student Succeeds Act. For example, conservative critics such as Utah Senator Mike Lee have charged that the new law repeats a “centrally planned” education model that has failed to work for decades. Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul voted against the bill on the grounds that it exercised too much federal power over education, while Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is also running for president, did not attend the Senate vote, but said that he did not favor the bill. Left-wing critics have complained that the testing from NCLB remains, with Al Jazeera noting on December 1 that many learning disabled and ESL students will still be forced to take the same exams as their peers that do have these hindrances as the law says that only 1% of students in special education programs can take alternative exams. Some leftist critics are also concerned about whether or not the federal government will adequately fund the law. They failed to do so under NCLB so that same phenomenon may take place as the government crafts its priorities for the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
The Every Student Succeeds Act is not a full repudiation of the principles of NCLB. Yes, the bill sets limits on the authority of the Secretary of Education, abolishes the universal proficiency benchmark in reading and mathematics among all students, and allows for more experimentation and flexibility by states when measuring schools, but the emphasis on school accountability that NCLB enshrined in 2002 has not changed. As a result, teachers’ unions will still find cause to complain about the law, as will those forces that do not favor standardized testing in American classrooms.