Mercedes Schneider did a neat job of locating the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. It was 32 pages long.
The new Every Student Succeeds Act is 1,061 pages long. Nothing wrong with that, except not many people have the time to read such a lengthy and complicated piece of legislation. That is not good for democracy. When a law is so complex that educated citizens do not have time to read it, only those with a strong interest read the parts that affect them.
And the original bill included this clear language:
Near the end of the 1965 ESEA document is the following:
FEDERAL CONTROL OF EDUCATION PROHIBITED SEC. 604. Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system.
Arne Duncan has certainly pushed the envelope on this one.
The main purpose of the original ESEA was equitable resources for the poorest students. Title I.
Title I has survived, but ESEA has morphed into a testing and accountability bill, especially since 1994, when states were required to develop standards and accountability systems. Then came the horrible NCLB, which created unprecedented demands for testing and accountability, enforced by the federal government with threats of cutting off federal aid.
Now ESSA returns to the states the decisions about how to use the results of tests, but it still mandates annual tests and 95% participation. Sadly, only 1% of students with disabilities will qualify for exemptions from state testing.
It has been a long journey, and it is not over yet.
After the passage of fifty years and many federal dollars, poor and black children continue to sit in overcrowded classrooms and to lack the basic necessities of schooling. If you don’t believe me, read this graphic portrait of Philadelphia’s filthy public schools. What suburb would permit such horrific conditions?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am not at all surprised about the awful conditions in Philadelphia. When I lived in Chicago about 25 years ago, there where TV news reports about predominantly African-American public elementary schools without heat in the winter. The video clips showed students at their desks wearing their big winter coats with boots and hats on. Their hands were very cold. I didn’t see how they could learn much in those conditions.
I’d just to like to mention that the reason Arne Duncan was able to “push the envelope” was Congress didn’t pass a bill.
Congress could have reined in Arne Duncan at any time. They did nothing for 7 years. Congress allowed the executive branch to (essentially) write education laws for 7 years thru Duncan’s waivers.
Yes! Thank you for this point.
Chiara: excellent point.
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Another ed reform lobbying group appears:
“A nonprofit group has begun a public relations campaign to defend Teach for America against critics of the program that places newly minted college graduates in teaching jobs in some of the country’s most challenging classrooms.
The new campaign, called Corps Knowledge, is an offshoot of the New York Campaign for Achievement Now (NYCAN), a network that supports public charter schools and school choice and wants to weaken teacher tenure laws.”
Half a million dollars goes to the growing “paid ed reform lobbyists” sector of our economy. If I were a high school guidance counselor I would tell seniors to pursue a career in ed reform lobbying. The sector is booming 🙂
I’m not clear why they need half a million dollars to plant ed reform editorials in newspapers. They seem to get that publicity free.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rapid-response-unit-aims-to-counter-criticisms-of-teach-for-america/2015/12/12/9c16d24a-a049-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html?tid=ss_tw-bottom
Chiara – They don’t need half a million dollars to plant ed reform articles in newspapers. They need to SPEND half a million dollars in a “non-profit” manner so that it is not necessary to pay taxes on it. If those funds were taxed, someone else would spend it on a lot of nonsense, like public schools with libraries and librarians.
One reason the current ESSA law is over one thousand pages long is due to the current state of decay in government. So many special interest groups and lobbyists push to have their agendas in the bill that the original intent of the law becomes perverted. The intention of this law was to improve outcomes for poor, mostly minority students. Without looking at best practices or research, our legislators created load of pork for private corporations whose ability to serve vulnerable populations has no basis in fact. Once again our neediest serve as corporate guinea pigs.
As for Philly, it disturbs me that the city has been so irresponsible with its schools. I attended Sheppard, an elementary school in a working class neighborhood. The city tried to close it in 2011, but the families, mostly Puerto Rican, protested and prevailed. While it remains open, it may fall prey to the latest bottom 5% closing scheme.
Public education was never perfect, and we aren’t likely to go back to some golden era. Spineless politicians and self-serving billionaires certainly carry their share of blame for the damage done in recent years. But, no one here seems to hold the sacrosanct institution of Higher Education responsible for their role in the gutting of public education. As I walk across the U of A campus, almost every building proudly proclaims that it is beholden to Walton, Tyson or some other corporate enterprise. The Department of Ed Reform is particularly egregious, and the Walton College of Business appears to be process and product of Walton megalomania. There is no tolerance for intellectual or academic freedom in that sort of atmosphere; all lock-step and toe the company line, thank you very much. Where were all those fine minds and high principles of Higher Education?
“But, no one here seems to hold the sacrosanct institution of Higher Education responsible for their role in the gutting of public education.”
I agree that it’s rarely mentioned how public universities have eagerly gone along with most of this.
I actually think it was incredibly short-sighted of them to join the attack on public schools, because they are next in line. They’ll gut everything but the top-tier “flagship” campuses and turn the rest into job training centers. They aren’t going to be “sacrosanct” long – the private sector will eagerly divert that funding to contractors too.
“For our present-day culture the extraverted attitude is the governing principle…always regulated by objective factors and outer determinants.” C G Jung, Psychological Types 1921
You mean like the “Paige Arena” at Mizzou???
michaellangford2012 & Chiara: thank you both for you comments.
The lack of good sense and even a feeble acquaintance with American culture is striking—
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”
Apparently there is no space at all in any of those “big” academic brains for Frederick Douglass.
Go figure…
$$$$$$$$$$
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The issue in the ESSA is not just the length of the law, but the overwriting of previous versions of ESEA and the legalese.
I think the following passage ought to be sent to David Coleman for a test of close reading—one of his favorite things to do and foist on students. Clearly the following should be on a test, perhaps in Civics.
1017. EDUCATION FINANCE INCENTIVE GRANT PROGRAM. Section 1125A (20 U.S.C. 6337) is amended—(1) in subsection (a), by striking ‘‘funds appropriated under subsection (f)’’ and inserting ‘‘funds made available under section 1122(a)’’; (2) in subsection (b)(1)— (A) in subparagraph (A), by striking ‘‘appropriated pursuant to subsection (f)’’ and inserting ‘‘made available for any fiscal year to carry out this section’’; and (B) in subparagraph (B)(i), by striking ‘‘total appropriations’’ and inserting ‘‘the total amount reserved under section 1122(a) to carry out this section’’; (3) in subsection (c), by redesignating subparagraphs (A) and (B) as paragraphs (1) and (2), respectively; (4) in subsection (d)(1)(A)(ii), by striking ‘‘clause ‘‘(i)’’ and inserting ‘‘clause (i)’’; (5) by striking subsection (e) and inserting the following: ‘‘(e) MAINTENANCE OF EFFORT.— ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—A State is entitled to receive its full allotment of funds under this section for any fiscal year if the Secretary finds that the State’s fiscal effort per student or the aggregate expenditures of the State with respect to the provision of free public education by the State for the preceding fiscal year was not less than 90 percent of the fiscal effort or aggregate expenditures for the second preceding fiscal year, subject to the requirements of paragraph (2). ‘‘
(2) REDUCTION IN CASE OF FAILURE TO MEET.— ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall reduce the amount of the allotment of funds under this section for any fiscal year in the exact proportion by which a State fails to meet the requirement of paragraph (1) by falling below 90 percent of both the fiscal effort per student and aggregate expenditures (using the measure most favorable to the State), if such State has also failed to meet such requirement (as determined using the measure most favorable to the State) for 1 or more of the immediately preceding fiscal years.
‘‘(B) SPECIAL RULE.—No such lesser amount shall be used for computing the effort required under paragraph (1) for subsequent years.
WAIVER.—The Secretary may waive the requirements of this subsection if the Secretary determines that a waiver would be equitable due to—‘‘(A) exceptional or uncontrollable cir cumstances, such as a natural disaster or a change in the organizational structure of the State; or ‘‘(B) a precipitous decline in the financial resources of the State.’’; (6) by striking subsection (f); (7) by redesignating subsection (g) as subsection (f); and (8) in subsection (f), as redesignated by paragraph (7)— (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘‘under this section’’ and inserting ‘‘to carry out this section’’; and (B) in paragraph (3), in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking ‘‘shall be’’ and inserting ‘‘shall be—’’.
“What suburb would permit such horrific conditions?”
A suburb controlled by the corporate public education demolition derby. aka: neoconservatives and/or neoliberals and/or fundamentalist evangelical Christians, who still believe God created the earth and all of its life forms in one day 6,000 years ago, or was that 10,000 years ago, while ignoring all the science and evidence of evolution like all those dinosaur fossils that date back hundreds of millions of years.
To understand better, these three definitions might help:
conservative
1) One who espouses a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change.
2) One who believes in less government being better government.
3) One who believes in such “outmoded” ideas as civil liberties (freedom of speech, separation of church and state, right to keep and bear arms, that kind of thing)
4) One for whom the Republican Party no longer truly speaks.
5) a word that today’s so-called “conservatives” don’t know the definition of.
“Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.” — Barry Goldwater
Liberalism
An ideology based on beliefs of economic and personal freedom, and the fact that social inequalities are a part of nature. (Also libertarianism to the American readers.)
A definition later to be distorted by Americans, who mainly associate “liberalism” with being left-wing on the political scale, disregarding the original and correct sense of the word.
Each man is the architect of his own fortune.
libertarian
One who follows a Utopian political ideology which claims to support individual freedoms in all areas socially and economically. Ironically, while they advocate “small” government, (i.e. reduction of government in all areas except those which protect the domination of the capitalist class) if the libertarian ideology were to actually be put into effect, it would more than likely lead to an extremely oppressive society, dominated even more than now, by a wealthy few. Because of this, libertarianism can be described as a form of corporatism in disguise. Libertarianism is popular among rebellious high schoolers who in actuality know little of politics or the real world.
“The mistake of the libertarian ideology is that it fails to recognize that big business is just as oppressive as big government.”
moderate
1) a sane person;
2) someone with a political belief that sits between the two extremes of liberal and conservative, usually combining aspects of both (example: liberal on social issues yet conservative on economic issues);
3) someone who seeks compromise on political issues and as such gets insulted by the two extremes who just don’t get the idea that this form of government survives by compromise;
4) someone whose political beliefs seem quiet and mild, and as such always ignored by the media, which seeks out people from the screechy Left and shrill Right because they make for better sound bites.
Moderates rule. Turn off FOX News and CNN and turn on Cartoon Network!