AUGUSTA, Maine — Last week, Congress and President Barack Obama enacted a 1,000-page behemoth that — after 13 years of what many educators see as crippling and unattainable federal standards — transfers much of the responsibility for school and student success from the federal to the local level.
The new law, which repeals many of the provisions in President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, largely tilts federal policy in a direction Maine is already moving on multiple fronts. That’s because of work that has already been done in recent years to secure a state-level waiver from some federal requirements.
Jaci Holmes, the Maine Department of Education’s federal state liaison, said passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act provides an opportunity for local districts to implement their own measures to help struggling students, teachers and schools.
“We will need to look at what’s in our waiver and what’s in this new bill, as well as what guidance will come out of the U.S. Department of Education in the coming months,” said Holmes. “While this is a great opportunity, we need to take time to be sure our implementation is effective.”
Here’s a rundown on why enactment of the federal law is important and what it means for Maine.
Alphabet soup of federal regulations
This has been a long time coming.
When President Lyndon Johnson signed the original Elementary and Secondary School Act in 1965, it had mostly to do with the federal government’s efforts to ensure that disadvantaged and special needs students received adequate support. In 2002, Bush reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary School Act and renamed it the No Child Left Behind Act, substantially ramping up the federal government’s oversight of local schools by, among other things, requiring more standardized testing and imposing a requirement that schools bring every student to 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics or face a loss of funding.
The No Child Left Behind Act began to lose steam as an increasing number of schools were labeled “failing” and policymakers began to recognize the implausibility of the measure’s goals. The Elementary and Secondary School Act/No Child Left Behind Act was due for reauthorization in 2007, but because of disagreement about its contents, the act languished on Congress’ work table until this year. The reauthorization, which found bipartisan support, was renamed again, this time as the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Effect on Maine
It won’t go into effect until the 2017-18 school year.
This will allow the Department of Education to sift through the lengthy bill and determine where Maine is already complying with the law and where more work needs to be done. Maine will submit a new state plan, likely next year, and will operate under the provisions of its waiver until August 2016.
It maintains student testing.
Maine students will still be required to adhere to the same level of testing, in grades three through eight and grade 11. Maine recently contracted with a firm called Measured Progress to replace the Smarter Balanced testing system.
It moves responsibility from the federal to the state and local levels.
Instead of a top-down approach in which the federal government dictates how the state should help schools and how schools should help struggling teachers and students, the Every Student Succeeds Act puts that onus primarily at the local level. It essentially allows schools to design their own methods to address student needs at the individual level. There will no longer be “priority” or “focus” labels for struggling schools, as there were under the No Child Left Behind Act. Maine and other states will have to formulate new improvement strategies every five years and submit them to the feds for approval.
It allows leeway on the use of federal funds.
Maine receives more than $70 million in federal funding for education, including pockets of money for low-income, neglected and delinquent children, improving teacher quality, helping students who speak English as a second language and competitive 21st century education grants. According to Holmes, the Every Student Succeeds Act allows Maine school districts more latitude on how that money is used. The federal government is expected to release in the next few weeks new figures about how much annual funding states should anticipate.
“I think this is an exciting shift away from the former bill, which was highly federally regulated,” said Holmes.
It emphasizes education for the young child.
The new law recognizes the importance of early childhood education, including pre-kindergarten programs. About 60 percent of Maine school districts have pre-K programs — including 44 grant-funded new ones this year — covering about 5,000 students annually.
There’s a lot of work to be done.
As Maine officials study the new law, school districts and educators should expect a series of publications and conference calls. Lois Kilby-Chesley, president of the Maine Education Association, the union that represents most public school teachers in Maine, said the union, many parents and educators appreciate the renewed focus on local control. However, what comes as a blessing also could materialize as a curse in terms of workload on education professionals.
“The people I talk with, including our members, are absolutely drowning in all the stuff that has to be done,” said Kilby-Chesley, who cited the new standardized testing law, aligning with the Common Core, implementing proficiency-based diplomas and education programs and teacher and principal evaluation systems.
“I’m not sure how much more they can take without having the days become 35-hour days,” she said. “What this should be all about is what’s best for kids; that should be the goal. … The only problem with local control is that teachers and principals have to be given the time to do the work.”
