The Governmental Law for the K-12 General Education

Edu Law
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Edu Law
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the primary governmental law for the K-12 general education. This federal law is applicable to all students in public schools across the United States. When it was put in place in 2015, ESSA took the place of the contentious No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) changed various things that were in the No Child Left Behind law (Camera, 2015). This paper analyzes some of the issues that were changed in the traditional No Child Left Behind act.
One of the changes that were made under the ESSA act was on how assessment was conducted. Under NCLB, states were supposed to oversee an assessment across the states in both math and English to every child each year in grade 3 to 8. Under the ESSA law, the testing committee still retains the authority to conducting the state testing but the committee has control on how to administer the test. This was done in order to allow the states to come up with innovative assessments that are capable of capturing various aspects of the student’s performance and growth. This change affects the teachers as they are now supposed to come up with innovative ways to gauge student’s performance and growth without relying on the traditional methods (Connally, & Tooley, 2016). This is a big improvement since there is now a guarantee that all students’ performance and growth will be addressed.
Another change that was made in the ESSA law was on academic standards. Under the NCLB law, academic standards were attained by making sure that states adopted a single test that was allied to the exigent academic standards and was integrated into their accountability systems. Under the ESSA law, the compulsory tests for states were only in math reading and science. This change was meant to give the states more power to come up with effective measures that would address student needs at the state level (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2016). Despite the benefits that this change presents, it has created a leeway for states to come up with less than sufficient testing processes that do not address student’s needs.
Another change that was introduced to the NCLB law was on accountability systems. The provisions of the 2001 NCLB law had a system that held all the states accountable on how they tested students. Under the ESSA law, states have flexibility in setting t...