The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed by the Congress and subsequently signed into law by the then United States president Johnson in 1965 (Aragon et al., 2016). This act was premised on the belief that education was a national priority and every American had the right to quality education. With the implementation of this Act, students from low-income families got the opportunity to improve their access to quality education facilitated by the federal grants they received (blog.ed.gov). This Act is the first education policy to have addressed inequality and is markedly redefined the government intervened to offer assistance to students from poor families and increase their access to quality education.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in an attempt to fill the gaps unsettled by the ESEA (Aragon et al., 2016). With the introduction of this law, all the educators and the schools were made liable for the disparities between the students. This policy aimed at reducing the achievement gaps between the students but has been criticized for setting unrealistic high standards and goals. Aiming at improving the ESEA, President Obama in 2015 signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
With the commissioning of the ESSA, new provisions were set forth that changed the previous ESEA to provide better opportunities for the students to truly benefit the country's students. The new regulation borrowed from the ideals of the longstanding No Child Left Behind Act while adapting the ESEA practices, through facilitating access to quality education to all the students. It also maintained the procedures and standards used by the ESEA at the states and to the levels that all students could reach (blog.ed.gov). The ESSA has moved beyond the achievements of the NCLB in many ways. Some of these improvements include the increased student readiness for career and college, creation of a very competitive system across the nation (including the Pre-K), and creating for supervision and accountability in schools and colleges (US Department of Education, 2018). However, the major difference that defines these two policies is found in who bears the responsibility for setting the education system goals and standards.
States' Responsibility
Before the ESSA bill was signed into law, President Obama had ensured that the States were capable of setting their own goals and standards. He also ensured the states were capable of developing their own student progress monitoring system. These were important foundations for the successful implementation of the new regulation. The ESSA acknowledged the diversity of the huge number of students from each state and recognized that a uniform federal education standards could not ensure equality (US Department of Education, 2018). In this regard, the ESSA charged the states with the responsibility of setting education standards unique to their regions with assistance from the educators living within those states. This provision gives the students an opportunity to meet the standards set for their states, giving them a chance to optimize their gain from education (US Department of Education, 2018).
Comprehensive Measurement
The Every Student Succeeds Act controls offer a more comprehensive way to deal with estimating a quality education. This implies NCLB's tight meaning of school achievement, which was construct fundamentally in light of test scores in math and English dialect expressions and graduation rates, will be supplanted with a more extensive view, to incorporate such things as student development, school and profession preparation, school atmosphere, or students' advance toward English language capability (US Department of Education, 2018).
Enhancing Equity
The policy likewise maintain ESSA's basic social liberties insurances and upgrade value for generally underserved students by including all students and every subgroup in decisions relating to school support and change (blog.ed.gov) This will help guarantee that significant move is made in places where groups of students or entire schools are falling behind, and that reasonable and straightforward data on basic measures of school quality and equity are given to guardians and the community. Besides, the regulation helps to guarantee more transparency for guardians, teachers, and the community around equity measures, for example, access to preschool, access to thorough coursework, and school train, including requiring that this data be made public on state and report cards.
Flexibility and Local Solutions
In areas where NCLB endorsed top-down approaches for struggling schools, the ESSA recommends a more flexible approach where the districts and schools are allowed to design local solutions and implement them to help and enhance struggling schools (Aragon et al., 2016). The provisions of ESSA additionally fortify its solid sense of duty regarding transparency and clearly defines the roles of the guardians, families, instructors, school pioneers, and a wide scope of different partners in the advancement and execution of the local and state plans in the school change process (blog.ed.gov).
Room for Improvement
While the ESSA has reduced the disparity in inequality in education, there is still room for improvement in the procedures and practices within classrooms. Besides, chances for improving the education policies to even further better address the challenge of inequality in education still exist as well. A single policy cannot in itself provide the lasting solution to the inequality in education. Seeking solutions to the possible challenges and education inequality gaps still unfilled by the ESSA regulation will go a long way in increasing opportunities for the students of the country.
References
Aragon, S., Griffith, M., Wixom, M. A., Woods, J., & Workman, E. (2016). ESSA: Quick Guides on Top Issues. Education Commission of the States.
Department of Education HomeRoom Blog. (2018, April 24). Implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act to Enhance Equity and Excellence. Retrieved from blog.ed.gov: https://blog.ed.gov/2016/05/implementing-the-every-student-succeeds-act-to-enhance-equity-and-excellence/
U.S. Department of Education. (2018, April 24). Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Retrieved from www.ed.gov: https://www.ed.gov/ESSA
