Joanne Yatvin, retired teacher, principal, and superintendent, wrote the following about the likely consequences of the new Every Student Succeeds Act. Much policy has shifted to the states, but the assumptions that undergird policy remain unchanged. Only citizens acting together can change the fundamental assumptions, by taking action in their respective states.
Yatvin writes:
The major changes in the Every Student Succeeds (ESSA) law are the shift from Federal control to state control and the removal of the rewards and punishments for schools that were used by the the Department of Education to ensure compliance. Yearly student tests will continue, but they will be chosen or designed by the states. In addition, the effectiveness of schools will be judged on more evidence than just test scores. Finally, actions to improve the performance of students in high poverty schools will be the central focus of states for the next several years. Although these changes promise better days for our public schools in the future, I still see much to be concerned about.
First and foremost, the beliefs that have dominated American education over the past twenty-some years still hold sway among decision makers and the public at large. Those beliefs were first voiced in a 1983 report by a commission created by President Ronald Reagan, titled, “A Nation at Risk.” Its central theme was that the United States’ educational system was failing to meet the national need for a competitive workforce. On the opening page the report declared, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” And it continued with a frightening possibility: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
Like its predecessor, ESSA will operate on the same beliefs about our system of public education, and for that reason states will be inclined to identify the same goals and use similar strategies to reach them. We are not done with judging our students, teachers, and schools mainly by test scores, or believing that comparisons with other countries’ scores on international tests are meaningful. Nor, are we done with top-down decision making on what, when, and how our students should learn, in disregard of teachers’ knowledge and experience. Many state legislatures–and their constituents–will continue to believe that charter schools, on the whole, are better than public schools and move to increase them. And some of those states will continue to offer vouchers to a few students to attend private or religious schools in the belief that they are throwing life preservers to drowning children.
Can these aberrations be stopped? The only way I see is for parents, teachers, and informed citizens to strengthen their efforts to support our public schools. We need to put pressure on state legislatures to use their funds and power to make intelligent decisions for our schools. If we are silent, thinking that all is well now that NCLB is dead, the future will be no better than the past.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Senator Lamar Alexander has said that the ESSA does more than any other piece of legislation in the past 25 years to revert power to the states. Ms. Yatvin’s blog agrees with that interpretation of ESSA.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said about ESSA, “Every bill’s a compromise, and we are happy to compromise on surface-y soundbites and maintain our values on the substance.” I think this assessment is more honest.
Under ESSA, the Secretary of Education has to approve all state standards and tests, and test scores must count for at least 51% of teacher evaluations. There are plenty of surface-y soundbites–the clause about Common Core, art education, assessments other than tests–but the education reformers got what they wanted. In Senator Patty Murray’s words: “strong federal guardrails.”
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There is also lots of corporate pork in this law that allows corporations to further use children as guinea pigs. Parents are going to have to be observant about how this aspect of the law is interpreted in the states. They should be ready to mobilize against any efforts to short change needy students. States will be looking to cut costs, and “Pay for Success” schemes will accomplish this. Parents will have to be vigilant to make sure disabled and needy students don’t spend all day in front of computer screens.
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It sounds like what really has happened is that the “work” has been switched to the states while the federal government still holds the reins. The policy has not changed. what is really different?
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As an alumnus of a Los Angeles High School (W’58) who has been a volunteer for the last 6 years at the school, during which public education has suffered decimation-by-profit-driven-reform, what has become most obvious is that the public in American public education is largely deaf and mute. Yes, I am pointing the finder at us. The population that comprise the off-campus stakeholder contingent, including parents, neighbors, business people, etc., any and all who pay the taxes that support schools, aren’t exercising their democratic rights and responsibilities in having a say in making the schools what they are.
NCLB could never have wreaked the havoc it has if off-campus stakeholders, free of the education bureaucracy’s hierarchical yoke, were vigilant and engaged. Neither NCLB or ESSA outlaws the practice of democracy or local activism. It is not against the law to establish public school community collaboratives, bringing together on and off-campus stakeholders in grassroots efforts to confront the corruption of public education by privitization, expertization, data-ization, high-stakes testification, and so on, all of which are about the economification of providing K-12 students the learning environments that allow them to develop the whole person each is and can be.
If we don’t take our place, get informed, work together and when necessary push back on the autocrats and oligarchs who think wealth and positon are the determinants of success and power, which by the use of they dare to sweep democracy under the rug in disregard of the rest of us, then we will continue to deserve what we got.
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As an alumnus of a Los Angeles High School (W’58) who has been a volunteer for the last 6 years at the school, during which public education has suffered decimation-by-profit-driven-reform, what has become most obvious is that the public in American public education is largely deaf and mute. Yes, I am pointing the finger at us. The population that comprises the off-campus stakeholder contingent, including parents, neighbors, business people, etc., any and all who pay the taxes that support schools, aren’t exercising their democratic rights and responsibilities in having a say in making the schools what they are.
NCLB could never have wreaked the havoc it has if off-campus stakeholders, free of the education bureaucracy’s hierarchical yoke, were vigilant and engaged. Neither NCLB or ESSA outlaws the practice of democracy or local activism. It is not against the law to establish public school community collaboratives, bringing together on and off-campus stakeholders in grassroots efforts to confront the corruption of public education by privitization, expertization, data-ization, high-stakes testification, and so on, all of which are about the economification of providing K-12 students the learning environments that allow them to develop the whole person each is and can be.
If we don’t take our place, get informed, work together and when necessary push back on the autocrats and oligarchs who think wealth and position are the determinants of success and power, which by the use of they dare to sweep democracy under the rug in disregard of the rest of us, then we will continue to deserve what we get.
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