~with U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley
Q: What is the Every Student Succeeds Act?
A: In the first rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since 2001, the Republican-led Congress restored a much greater degree of local control and decision-making authority to parents, teachers and local school board members in December with bipartisan passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act. It replaces the troubled No Child Left Behind Act.
President Bush’s proposal for that law called for greater local control over teaching in return for more accountability in terms of student achievement outcomes, but the degree of local freedom many had hoped for didn’t materialize. What we did get was a detailed one-size-fits-all assessment and accountability system that prescribed interventions for schools not making progress toward all students being proficient in reading and math by 2014. That date has now passed so schools across Iowa face increasingly onerous top-down interventions. Since the No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to last only until 2007, there should have been plenty of time to adjust the goal, but until now, Congress has not been able to come up with a replacement.
The Every Student Succeeds Act was a bipartisan compromise, which was necessary to pass the Senate. It does not go as far as I would like in reducing federal involvement in local schools, but it is a big improvement over the status quo.
Schools serve as the lifeblood of neighborhoods across the country. It makes sense that parents, taxpayers, elected school board members and educators living and working in these neighborhoods are best able to identify problems, solve challenges and remove learning barriers in the classrooms where students are attending the schools in their communities. I believe that our local schools can do more when the Washington bureaucracy does less and this new law will allow key decisions to be made closer to the parents and students they affect.
Q: What provisions did you secure in the new education law?
A: As founder and co-chair of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth, I work to give a voice to foster kids at the policymaking tables in Washington. Too many foster youth face a lifetime of uncertainty and interminable transition. Many times, schools are their only lifeline to stability and haven for a sense of belonging. That’s why I worked to strengthen connections between child welfare agencies and state and local education institutions so that foster youth aren’t allowed to fall behind or face an endless cycle of being shuffled from one school to the next.
Also included were key parts of a bill I introduced to fix federal incentives that were preventing gifted and talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds reaching their fullest potential.
Beyond that, I worked on provisions to ensure states are free from federal coercion in setting content standards and I ensured that a civic education grant program the bill’s authors included kept a focus on teaching the history and principles of the Constitution. These founding principles have guided America’s prosperity for more than 200 years. It makes sense that younger generations develop a keen understanding and appreciation for the bedrock values of liberty, freedom and justice.
