New education law to impact Sonoma classrooms

15-year era of No Child Left Behind is over, new ESSA era has begun|

It has a promising name. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). But while the new federal law that replaces No Child Left Behind received broad bipartisan support when it passed late last year, how it will affect students right here in Sonoma Valley is a complicated issue. The Index-Tribune attended a news conference with representatives from the U.S. Department of Education, the American Federation of Teachers and a half-dozen national education policy think-tanks and came back with what you need to know.

1. ESSA is a reset. It seeks to clip the wings of the U.S. Department of Education and shift power back to the states. While No Child Left Behind was prescriptive, ESSA enables each state to set its own bar for student achievement. 'ESSA creates more flexibility for states and districts in defining what an excellent education looks like and what a struggling school looks like,' said Emma Vadehra, chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Education. ESSA requires states to prepare students for college with challenging standards but doesn't specifically require Common Core or any other set standard.

2. Local districts will have more power. While power has shifted from the federal government to the states, still unknown is exactly how much leeway the states will give individual districts or how prescriptive they will be. School districts like Sonoma Valley will definitely have more flexibility to determine how funds are spent going forward, how they work to improve achievement gaps and far more leeway on key decisions overall than under No Child Left Behind.

3. There will be less emphasis on standardized testing. Students in Sonoma will take the new Smarter Balanced tests every year in third through eighth grade and schools will still report their scores to the government but at the high school level, schools can choose to substitute SAT or ACT instead of previously-mandated standardized tests. More importantly, there is a new focus on developing reliable ways to measure school quality that go beyond test results.

4. More holistic judging of schools. ESSA requires each state to pick at least one indicator other than standardized tests to illustrate how their kids are doing. California hasn't decided yet but it has announced that it is working on a career- and college-readiness indicator. The possible additional indicators mentioned by the panel included academic climate, completion of advanced coursework, absenteeism, graduation rates, student engagement and CTE participation.

5. A sea change in evaluating teachers. The qualifications of a teacher will be less important under the new law, and his or her effectiveness more so. That said, experts are still struggling to define and quantify effective teaching. Research cited by the panel suggests that effective teachers establish strong relationships with their students, can meet the needs of diverse learners and can engage their students in meaningful activities.

6. ESSA may increase transparency. The law will require public reporting by each school of per-pupil spending, personnel salaries, teacher experience, funding sources (federal, state and local) and other data to be publicly available.

7. Schools may receive a letter grade. So will ESSA help parents to evaluate their local schools? The law requires state to produce a summative rating of each of its schools, a letter rating like A-F or 'high, growing and low,' or some other label. California is fighting back, however, and is leaning instead toward grades on perhaps 20-40 indicators.

8. Continued emphasis on struggling schools. Low-performing schools and those with dramatic achievement gaps will still be accountable to the U.S. government and will be asked to come up with a school-level plan for improvement and will receive 'targeted support.' That list of schools won't be announced until 2018-19.

ESSA wording instructs states and districts to focus on its schools with the greatest number of students who are struggling. 'ESSA is all about ensuring equity – and that's why there is a federal role in education,' said Vadehra.

9. There are still a lot of unknowns. November's election means that a new administration will interpret and carry out the law. Vadehra says that the U.S. Department of Education, is confident, however, that ESSA will be fully in place in 2017-18 school year.

While it is not yet clear how the Every Student Succeeds Act will affect the educational environment for students in local districts like Sonoma Valley, this is an important story to follow, says Sonoma Valley Unified School District Superintendent Louann Carlomagno. 'Where the rubber hits the road will be the decisions that states and districts are making right now,' said Vadehra.

Contact Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

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