No Child Left Behind Act Replaced with the “Every Student Succeeds Act”

The“Every Student Succeed Act "has replaced NCLB act for K-12 education in the United States. Congress voted to lessen the role that the federal government will play in education, while allowing for more decisions to occur in the districts and states. The over testing accountability culture that punished states if students did not score proficient in math and reading will be eliminated and replaced with the “Every Student Succeeds” measure. States will now fix their own problems by creating their own tests and creating their own evaluation for teachers.  States will determine for themselves how achievement gaps will be closed. Arne Duncan says that the top-down, one size fits all system of NCLB will be replaced with a system of laws that are more flexible for finding the best solutions locally. The secretary of education Arne Duncan stepped down as secretary of education and has an interim who is nominated to replace Duncan. The acting secretary of education  is John B. King; an African American and said to be a pro charter schools advocate, as he founded his own charter school, just outside of Boston in 1999 (Camera, 2015).

Some things remain the same in the new system for K-12 education, including the federal schedule of testing (testing grade 3-8 and once in high school in math and reading); and the annual reporting of achievement scores with a demographic break down. New safeguards include the monitoring from states for the underserved students. The new educational law is a direct response to President Obama’s executive authority and call for change in education. The bipartisan vote and legislation of congress is represented in the “Every Student Succeed Act” (Camera, 2015).  

Obviously, selection of local leadership for local developments and strategies need to be done with the most care and discretion. According to Rivera, 2015, the act provides for the states discretion for developing their own strategies for the lowest performing schools of Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, Governor Wolf secured an increased budget of 350 million dollars to strengthen education in the state. Now, we all share the goal for securing quality education for Pennsylvania (Reigelman, 2015).

                                                                       

                                                             References

Reigelman, N. (2015). Pennsylvania Pressroom, State department of education responds to congressional passage of Every Student Succeeds Act. http://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/Education-Details.aspx?newsid=199