The series about the new Every Student Succeeds Act is concluded. I want to thank Senator Lamar Alexander and his staff, especially David P. Cleary, chief of staff, for responding to my questions. I know that readers have additional questions or want clarifications of some of the statements. The new law is the result of negotiations between the two parties. Questions will inevitably arise as the new law is implemented. Meanwhile, feel free to submit your questions and you can be sure that Senator Alexander’s staff will answer them as best they can. Let me add that there are things in this law I like, and things I don’t like. I will spell those out in a separate post.
Here are the links to each of the posts written by Senator Lamar Alexander’s staff.
2. ESSA and Teacher Evaluation
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on education pathways and commented:
Good reference for what the changes may mean to education. So much still depends on how the the states move forward, but it seems to me that the states have fewer restrictions in general and fewer monetary incentives to pursue excessive high stakes testing.
Reblogged this on Teachers in Distress.
I agree that ESSA is better than NCLB and RTTT… but that is a low bar to jump over. I remain convinced that doing nothing and allowing the opt-out movement to expand would have made public education a front burner issue in the 2016 election. Instead, both parties can point to ESSA as an example of bi-partisanship and the 20+ states with Republican governors and legislatures can go to town with VAM and privatization… Oh… and standardized testing will continue in all states for another 4-5 years which will institutionalize it even more.