Congress isn’t known for its Christmas spirit. It wasn’t clear then where the remarkable, family get-together, bipartisanship came from when both houses passed the Every Child Succeeds Act.
This legislation, which replaces the No Child Left Behind law, passed in the House of Representatives by a stunning 357-64, and in the usually more contentious Senate the proportion in favor was even slightly higher at 85-12. President Barack Obama, quickly signing the bill into law before everyone started arguing about it again, called the bipartisan vote, “a Christmas miracle.”
Bipartisanship, alone, does not ensure that the Every Student Succeeds Act will itself succeed. After all, in 2002 the No Child Left Behind legislation passed with an even stronger affirmation, winning 384-45 in the House and 87-10 in the Senate. From an educational standpoint what will make the difference is whether the new law corrects the shortcomings of No Child Left Behind or simply suppresses the whining about it that eventually undermined its effectiveness.
One of the biggest changes that the Every Student Succeeds Act will bring is in testing. The nationwide, annual, comprehensive tests in math and English in each of the elementary grades will be replaced by testing systems managed by each state. This will allow tests to be divided up into monthly, quarterly, or other time periods depending on course material or other factors. The same flexibility will be allowed in the single high school level test required under the old law.
As a practical matter, politically, something like this had to be done. Students, teachers, parents, and district officials whined incessantly about the testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind law. “Teaching to the Test” became the designated goat — responsible for each and every one of the educational system’s failings. If the Every Student Succeeds Act manages nothing more than to erase the expression, “teaching to the test” from English usage entirely it should count as a win for educational progress.
Another major change that the new law will bring is in accountability, which will now move from the federal government to the individual states. Of course, the feds never really cut all the strings in a system, so states still have to submit accountability plans to the Department of Education and meet guidelines for how these plans should be structured.
The Every Student Succeeds Act also eliminates the specific actions that would follow if a school consistently failed to perform adequately. The problem of failing schools, like testing, will now be left to the individual states to figure out. The feds are saying, “Fix it.” But they are not saying how.
The best thing about Every Student Succeeds is that it reduces the size of the federal footprint. The fundamental flaw in the No Child Left Behind law wasn’t the insistence that failing schools had to shape up or be shut down. And, no, it wasn’t the testing requirements, either. It was simply that the federal government ended up trying to micromanage everything from school selection, testing and curriculum to classroom teaching and school funding.
On the other hand, it is not clear that the federal government now has a clear picture in its mind of what its role in education should be. Handing off responsibility for setting achievement standards to states is a good thing, but we have to face up to the fact that by doing so we are returning to a system that was malfunctioning so badly that it precipitated the No Child Left Behind law. Is that a good thing?
Setting standards by itself will not improve our public educational system. Only standards that are enforced are effective, and some cities and states have proven themselves to be unable to stand up to resistance to enforcement. Every effort to shut down a school, either because it is failing to educate its students or failing Economics 101 by having too few students, is met with an intensity of protests and complaints that quickly reaches the threshold of political significance. When school districts install graduation requirements based on educational standards everyone is in favor of the idea…until it is their sons and daughters who have to repeat the eighth grade, or attend summer school to receive their high school diplomas.
The Every Student Succeeds Act will correct some of our mistakes and, hopefully, open up some new paths to educational improvement. We expend an enormous amount of our time and resources on public education and its success or failure will have a direct and powerful impact on our economy. It is worrisome that the new law still doesn’t address the fundamental problems that are sabotaging our public education system. With any luck at all, though, that will come later.
James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and consultant. He also writes a column for the monthly Herald Business Journal.
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