The original version of the Every Student Succeeds Act was 1,061 pages. Mercedes Schneider here posts the final version of the act, which is a kinder, gentler 391 pages. Read it if you have time.
In time, I will have informed commentary on this site by some of those who drafted the legislation. Or so I have been promised.
Let me say one more time that I really wish this act were titled the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2015.” I hate the “every student succeeds” act. I also hated “no child left behind.” I don’t see why legislation has to have a title that is a bold and totally unrealistic promise.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bound to fail from the get-go unless you happen to think that everyone with some responsibility for students, and students themselves, are infallible and Congress has omniscient power to authorize and put in place a perfect education, perfect in every way, including a generation of students with a perfected gene pool for learning.
I agree Diane. The award for My baloney has a first name, goes to ESSA.
Ed reformers in Ohio want to get rid of the state board.
Replace with “experts”, hopefully all hand-picked political appointees from the national ed reform lobbying group rosters and all in agreement on rubber-stamping any and all privatization efforts.
Ideally.
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Thank you, Diane and Mercedes!
Take every education law and turn it 180 degrees and therein lies the truth.
NCLB = Every Child Left Behind
RTT = Race to the Trough
ESS = No Student Succeeds
“Three laws in a nutshell”
We left them in the weeds
In race to make a buck
So every child succeeds
In being out of luck
The more exaggerated is the legislation’s title (e.g., NCLB: “No Cash Leaves the Beltway”), the less likely it will accomplish its advertised goals.
The key word here is “success.” Does anyone bother to question the meaning of success as defined by a small segment of society–mainly oligarchs who want worker bees to help line their pockets. It’s another example of feel-good language designed to brainwash citizens into believing that what is being proposed is universally good. Hogwash! If that’s the only goal of public education, then business and industry should be paying for it–not the taxpayers or their children, who are certainly NOT being served.
The mission of public schools is, and long has been, “producing” workers who can “successfully compete in the global economy” (current DOE mission statement). So success is defined as getting good grades on tests, so you can get into a good college, so you can get a good job (working for someone else), and make a lot of money, and buy a lot of things, (which is even better for big business.)
If the economy is the end-all and be-all, wouldn’t facilitating the development of the unique potential of EACH individual provide a broader and deeper pool of talent, ideas, and creative thinkers. How would that be BAD for the economy?
Oh, sorry, I forgot. In the predictive words of H.L. Mencken, written in 1924.
the aim of public education is NOT “…to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim . . . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a STANDARDIZED citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. . . and that is its aim everywhere else.”
“If that’s the only goal of public education, then business and industry should be paying for it–not the taxpayers or their children, who are certainly NOT being served.”
…except in the this sense
You are right. We need to pay closer attention to what they actually mean by their words, not what we want them to mean.
Hilarious! And how appropriate!
Looking forward to the commentaries! I agree that the name is ridiculous.
Depending on the way you read “Every Student Succeeds” I think there’s silver lining in the name. If norm-referenced testing is a framework that dictates some students will fail automatically (following some sort of normal curve, presumably), then deciding that, a priori, there’s something every student does that fits within the definition of success is a very different philosophical take on performance. I doubt that’s the intention of the lawmakers, but I think it’s a valid reading of the phrase.