Highlighting ESSA Changes
From Michael Kaspar

Now that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was reauthorized by Congress, sense-making, otherwise know as the rulemaking, of the law begins. Let’s start at the beginning. The first thing to know is that the bill is no longer called No Child Left Behind or NCLB, but is now known as the Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA (and, that is pronounced typically with a short ‘e’ at the beginning: Es’ Suh).

The bill is divided into several parts called Titles. STEM related issues are found mostly in Title II and in Title IV, though there are some STEM items in Title I. The focus here will be to outline some of those major highlights of ESSA that affect overall education as well as STEM.

Arguably, the most significant difference between the new bill and the old one is the role of the State versus that of the Federal government. The new bill places education squarely on the shoulders of the state while clearly decreasing the role of the federal government, particularly the Department of Education. There is no doubt that when each state’s government realizes its role, funding will become a major factor.

The federal government will no longer be doling out funds to the State Education Agencies (SEA) as under the previous bill, but will be mostly funding states in the form of “block” grants. States will receive these block grants through an application process; a process that is now taking shape. Obviously, this will take some time to create, though the time frame is on the fast track…faster than many might expect from the typically slow-moving governmental processes.

As the rule-making for ESSA continues over the next several weeks, here are major highlights:

States are no longer required by the federal government to use student outcomes (test scores) for teacher evaluations. Teacher evaluations will be designed by the states. Along with this change, the “highly qualified” teacher requirement is eliminated. One may remember that for a teacher to be highly qualified the teacher had to be certified in that subject. This was particularly relevant to high school teachers. For example, if a teacher was to be a highly qualified biology teacher, the teacher had to be certified in biology. As a result, a student could be moved out of that teacher’s classroom to one where the teacher was highly qualified. Often was the case, where the student had nowhere else to go.

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program was eliminated…though, that is not necessarily the worst news. ESSA consolidated a number of programs such as the MSP program, but created a $1.6 billion block grant in Title II generating other funding opportunities. For STEM (in both Title II and Title IV), this includes teacher professional development, leadership training, grants for performance pay and differential pay, and alternative certification programs which are to be made available to both states and districts.

In what may be considered a ‘hallelujah’ moment, Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) was eliminated. That is, schools that did not meet the requirements of AYP would no longer be subjected to a series of punitive repercussions as mandated under NCLB. However, states would now be required to determine their own policies in regard to school and student progress.

States would decide what to hold schools and districts accountable for and how to intervene in low performing schools. They must use test scores in accountability frameworks, but they also must include multiple measures (not just tests). States are required to identify and intervene in schools with the bottom 5 percent of performers and intervene in high schools where the graduation rate is 67 percent or less.

States will continue to test students in reading and mathematics in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. As in the previous law, science testing would continue once in elementary grades, once in middle level, and once at high school. As part of the accountability mentioned above, the states will be required to report on this data for the schools and the subgroups of students (such as ELL (English Language Learners), special education, low income, and minority students).

No more Common Core State Standards. The bill clearly restricts the powers of the Secretary of Education and specifically prohibits the “incentivizing, forcing, or coercing states into adopting Common Core, or interfering with a state’s right to develop or change its own set of standards and assessments.” Regardless of what the standards are called, states must adopt ‘challenging’ academic standards.

As impetus builds around the “opt-out” test movement and state law is created, ESSA mandates that states must still maintain the 95 percent student participation federal requirement. Which 5% of students manage to “opt-out” of testing is a mystery at this time.

Michael Kaspar is the Senior Policy Analyst staffing the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics desk for the National Education Association. He is the founding director of the DC STEM Alliance and the DC Science Teachers Association.

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