4 Helpful Things Every Person In Every State Should Know About “ESSA”

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) may sound like a snoozefest – but read on to make the Founding Fathers super proud. Happy Birthday America!

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a bi-partisan law that (shockingly) most of the education world was pretty optimistic about when it passed in December 2015.

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While the chief architects of ESSA were Republicans, it had bi-partisan support and passed easily through the House and Senate. Upon signing it, President Barack Obama called the bipartisan consensus “a Christmas miracle” because:

a) bi-partisan bills are basically on the endangered species list, and

b) shockingly, reactions from teacher’s unions, conservatives, and civil rights groups were all pretty optimistic that ESSA had some serious potential. There was something in there for everyone… an emphasis on state and local control, accountability, reduction of reliance on high-stakes testing, etc.

ESSA is kinda like the new NCLB but also totally, completely different.

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Here's what we mean:

ESSA replaced No Child Left Behind (NLCB) - the federal education law passed in 2001.

The basic gist of NCLB is that the feds prescribed goals and accountability plans for states, and there were consequences (read: $$) attached for failing to meet those goals.

And while there were some good things about NCLB (like actually having data and trends for the first time on achievement gaps), the unintended bi-products included increased anxiety and pressure around state tests, and concerns around jeopardizing federal funding, all of which ended up bumming most everyone out and turned "accountability" into a negative word.

ESSA does a switcharoo and lets states set their own goals and accountability systems (with some key guardrails written in to ensure all students are tended to). This gets rid of the whole one-size-fits-all top-down federal antics of NCLB and allows states to craft plans that are relevant to their own students and their own teachers and their own schools.

States now have a ton of freedom to craft their own education accountability plans

States are choosing their own adventure. This is great news because it means states can lead the way and innovate. They can decide what proficiency goals they plan to meet in the next 5 or 10 (or more) years, and how they plan to help struggling schools and address inequities.

States have to submit their ESSA plans to the federal government for review to make sure they comply with the basic requirements in the law. So far 17 states have submitted their plans to the Dept. of Education for the first deadline (Click here to see which states).

The next (and final) deadline for the remaining 34 states to submit their final plans to the Dept. of Education is September.

While it’s exciting that the federal government isn’t hovering over states’ schools like it was in the NCLB days, with states’ new autonomy and power comes great responsibility…

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All this means - you have a role to play and you seriously need to speak up!

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If you are [insert from list]…

a) An educator

b) A student

c) A parent

d) A person who will eventually have kids

e) A businessperson

f) A person who pays taxes

g) A person who lives in the United States of America

… the ESSA plan your state crafts will impact your life.

So you need to make the Founding Fathers proud and take one of these actions below:

Do you live in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Louisiana, Massachussetts, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, or Vermont?

If you answer yes:

Go to this page and see what experts in the field think of your plan.

Make the founding fathers who invented American democracy proud -- go now!

If you answer no:

If you’re in one of the other 34 states, send a tweet to policymakers in your state. We wrote a tweet just for your awesome state!

All you have to do is click on it! Really – click to tweet and you’ll be honoring America on her B-day and helping kids in your state by encouraging your policymakers to make a thoughtful plan for success.

Alabama: Tweet!

Alaska: Tweet!

Arkansas: Tweet!

California: Tweet!

Florida: Tweet!

Georgia: Tweet!

Hawaii: Tweet!

Idaho: Tweet!

Indiana: Tweet!

Iowa: Tweet!

Kansas: Tweet!

Kentucky: Tweet!

Maryland: Tweet!

Minnesota: Tweet!

Mississippi: Tweet!

Montana: Tweet!

Nebraska: Tweet!

New Hampshire: Tweet!

New York: Tweet!

North Carolina: Tweet!

Ohio: Tweet!

Oklahoma: Tweet!

Pennsylvania: Tweet!

Rhode Island: Tweet!

South Carolina: Tweet!

South Dakota: Tweet!

Texas: Tweet!

Utah: Tweet!

Virginia: Tweet!

Washington: Tweet!

West Virginia: Tweet!

Wisconsin: Tweet!

Wyoming: Tweet!