On Thursday, July 16, the US Congress made the first change to the main education law in over a decade. The new bill, which will affect 50 million school students across the country, was approved by a bipartisan vote. Prepared by senators Patty Murray and Lamar Alexander, it was a compromise between the Democrats and Republicans. Is it enough to change the current American education system?
No Child Left Behind Rewritten
The new bill includes changes to the No Child Left Behind Act. They were proposed by the representatives of the two major parties. The main idea of the bill was to rewrite the Act signed by the Bush Administration, in order to shift from federal control to giving states more power.
For example, in 2002, the Act established annual testing of the students in grades 3 through 8. Results of the assessment served as the criterion of the school performance. Those with the lowest performance faced budget cuts. After the law expired in 2007, there were numerous efforts to change it. It became necessary to soften the rigid standards and not to force every school into the single framework. According to the new version of No Child Left Behind, the annual testing will remain centralized, but the Common Core, a set of academic standards, is in the past. Standards will be created on the state level, not the federal.
The Controversies around the Recent Changes
Education panel Chairman Lamar Alexander (a Republican from Tennessee) was one of key people who worked on the bill. His major goal was to release schools from the grasp of the federal control. Sen Patty Murray (a Democrat from Washington) believes that the bill success in the Congress means that the compromise between the two parties has been achieved. However, there have been some major controversies.
For example, a lot of issues were dropped: LGBT discrimination, anti-bullying measures, vouchers for low-income students, protection of disadvantaged or minority students through their reassessment, and accountability for the lowest-performing schools.
What’s more, a rewritten version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed on July 8. Almost solely beneficial to Republicans, it eliminates the so-called accountability: while states can deal with the low-performing schools as they prefer, states do not have the specific instructions on how to deal with them. This creates concern that the new bill does not guarantee support from the “local leaders” to struggling children.
So Will It Change the Situation?
On the bright side, the overhaul of No Child Left Behind has proved that the compromise between the Democrats and Republicans is possible. However, there are flaws. Firstly, the civil-rights advocates in the Senate did not get the chance to ensure protection of the vulnerable groups. Secondly, the legislation has created a serious gap by eliminating accountability, which might lead to disadvantaged and minority students being even less protected.
There will be no obligatory federal standards anymore, and it means that states cannot be forced to take specific actions on low-performing schools. So, the children who struggle with school performance (minorities, low income, or disadvantaged in any other way) are not protected enough. If states choose to cut the funding, they will do it based on their own standards. And there is no guarantee that those standards are less strict than the federal before. Perhaps, a centralized set of guidelines would be a good idea.