Arizona Education Association

Spring 2016

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26 ADVOCATE | SPRING 2016 National Perspective Educators Welcome New Education Law to Create Greater Opportunity for Every Student President Obama Marks Start of New Era in Public Education with ESSA Signing t a White House ceremony on December 10, 2015, President Barack Obama signed into law S. 1177, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a bipartisan and bicameral bill to reauthorize the federal education law known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). NEA President Lily Eskelsen García joined the president at the White House signing ceremony. "This new law is a well-deserved victory for our nation because the Every Student Succeeds Act will create greater opportunity for every student regardless of ZIP Code," said Eskelsen García. "Educators welcomed the end of No Child Left Behind and the beginning of a new era in public education in schools." "This bipartisan bill has returned decision making regarding Arizona schools back where it belongs – in the hands of our educators, parents and communities," says AEA President Andrew F. Morrill. "The bill provides Arizona officials with the authority to do what they think is best for our schools while keeping the focus on students most in need. Arizona leaders are now in a better position to fix schools for all students and begin closing opportunity gaps." With the final step of President Obama's signature, the No Child Left Behind era – 14 long years - officially comes to a close. "A rewrite of NCLB was long overdue," says Morrill. "I heard from educators across the state that there is a lot of hope in how ESSA will serve students, especially at-risk and disadvantaged children." What ESSA sets out to do is strike the right balance between the respective roles of the federal, state and local governments in formulating education policy. The widely-shared consensus over the past few years is that NCLB was tilted toward the federal side but for the wrong reason. The original ESEA's emphasis on ensuring equity and opportunity was brushed aside while new rigid, punitive mandates to states and school districts on how students and schools should be evaluated were imposed. Every Student Succeeds goes a long way in defanging NCLB's grinding test and punish regime, lays a path for new flexible pillars of school accountability and reaffirms the original law's vision that zip code shouldn't determine the quality of a child's education. Throughout the reauthorization process, NEA's focus has been threefold: decouple standardized testing from high stake decisions, create an "opportunity dashboard" to help close opportunity gaps that shortchange students most in need and elevate the voices of educators in the policymaking process. On these critical measures, ESSA delivers. Opportunity Gaps in Focus For the first time, state-designed accountability systems must include at least one indicator of school success or student support to determine where holes should be filled. These indicators could include lack of school counselors, or inadequate access to advanced coursework or a richer curriculum. Less High Stakes ESSA will still require annual tests in grades 3-8 and once in high school. However one of the linchpins of NCLB, the so-called Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) mandate, is history. For years, this provision dangled threats of punitive measures, including closure, over struggling schools if they didn't meet narrow and unrealistic federally-mandated measures of accountability. ESSA provides funding for states to audit and streamline assessment systems, eliminate redundant and inefficient assessments and improve them. The new law also creates a pilot program for state-designed assessment systems that are driven by teaching and learning, than accountability that best inform instruction. And where states allow, ESSA maintains the right of parents to opt their children out of statewide academic assessments and allows states to limit the amount of time students spend taking annual tests. Greater Educator Voice The Every Student Succeeds Act strikes a much more constructive balance between federal and state and local control than the heavy-handed NCLB. For more than ten years, educators' expertise has been muzzled by unreasonable and unworkable mandates. While ESSA preserves the historic federal role in protecting the most vulnerable students it also recognizes that top-down doesn't work for everything. The new law prohibits the federal government from mandating teacher evaluations or defining what an "effective" teacher and calls for that many decisions for local schools be determined by collaboration between educators, parents and other community members. The Every Student Succeeds Act: What Educators Should Know Article continues on p. 38.

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