The Every Student Succeeds Act was enacted in 2015 after years of painstaking negotiations and compromise. But one thing the people who wrote it didn鈥檛 include in the law, or talk about when they wrote it, was how it would be affected by a pandemic.
As the coronavirus surges nationwide, some schools that had reopened for in-person instruction, or planned to, are reconsidering their options. Children who haven鈥檛 swapped out public schools for other choices, or dropped off the radar altogether, still face major disruptions. And the pandemic has wrought huge changes if not chaos on educators in terms of where they can direct their time and energy.
The main federal K-12 law focuses on accountability, but otherwise doesn鈥檛 engage in a lot of micromanagement of how schools work. It has a limited amount of power by design. Will that structure help it endure? And how, and how much pressure could the pandemic put on the law鈥檚 assumptions and foundations?
Domino Effects
One general theme to keep in mind is that ESSA isn鈥檛 particularly old. Not all state ESSA plans were approved by the U.S. Department of Education until late 2017. Roughly three years after the law passed, school report cards mandated by ESSA were still rolling out. There鈥檚 been a similar timeline for school spending reports required by the law. As late as last year, the department was giving .
That鈥檚 one main reason why it鈥檚 unlikely that Congress will rewrite ESSA any time soon; technically, it鈥檚 been up for reauthorization since December 2019. In that sense, ESSA as a statute seems safe.
The greatest short-term stress test will involve assessments. Last spring, states got waivers from the department and didn鈥檛 have to give ESSA-mandated exams. Whether to waive the tests again will be one of the major questions President-elect Joe Biden鈥檚 Education Department will face. Shortly before Election Day, his campaign .
Those tests are at the heart of the law. But the law鈥檚 accountability mandates stretch beyond them. It governs which schools must receive more attention and action from states and districts, which student receive intensive academic interventions, and what goals states have for student achievement and improvement, among other things.
Even if the Education Department declines to grant blanket testing waivers, it鈥檚 doubtful states seeking flexibility would walk away empty-handed. For example, at the most general level, states could get once again and to hit pause any consequences for schools from those test results. Such a pause would affect the 2021-22 school year.
The department鈥檚 power to grant waivers from ESSA isn鈥檛 absolute. But it鈥檚 theoretically possible that states and federal officials鈥� negotiations over what鈥檚 incorporated into such flexibility could become detailed and extensive. It鈥檚 important to remember that , but not necessarily ESSA-mandated exams and consequences under traditional accountability systems.
ESSA doesn鈥檛 mandate annual updates for key data points鈥攕tates need only revise the lowest-performing 5 percent of Title I schools in the state only once every three years, for example. So it鈥檚 hard to judge exactly what impact an accountability freeze of two years鈥攐r longer鈥攚ould have for struggling schools and students during a pandemic. To the extent schools surmount the unprecedented challenges stemming from COVID-19, some education officials might decide that one lesson from the pandemic is how little those considerations mattered compared to other stresses on the system.
鈥淚f you have enough time without this data and accountability, the argument becomes: 鈥極h, we did fine without testing,鈥欌�� said Dale Chu, an independent education consultant and former Indiana education department official. 鈥淭he winds seem to be blowing in that direction.鈥�
ESSA is meant to highlight schools and students that need more attention and resources. In its own unprecedented, acute, and urgent fashion, the pandemic has also underscored inequities in education. But that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean, of course, that ESSA and COVID-19 are highlighting the needs of the same schools and students in the same way. Schools that need help now but didn鈥檛 before the pandemic might not have access to certain money that , for example.
鈥淚t鈥檚 quite possible that the data the states were looking at before aren鈥檛 fully capturing the biggest pain points and the biggest concerns鈥� during the pandemic, said Anne Hyslop, a former Educaion Department official during the Obama administration who鈥檚 now an assistant director at the .
As for states鈥� blueprint for identifying and helping schools and students in need, Hyslop noted, 鈥淪ome of the strategies and plans you had selected were contingent on in-person instruction. They weren鈥檛 created with the pandemic in mind.鈥�
Other federal activities also play a role here. The , and in the turn the role the census plays in how much money schools get through ESSA programs, Hyslop said, is worth watching.
And the Education Department could face a great deal of pressure on its time and resources that could push monitoring compliance with the law, even where its requirements haven鈥檛 been temporarily waived, down the list of priorities.
鈥楻eally in the Weeds鈥�
Graduation rates are another important factor in ESSA accountability systems. So is a measurement of postsecondary readiness, and 鈥渙pportunity to learn鈥� measurements like school climate that were new to federal accountability. How these factors will be measured, adjusted, or sidelined is a story that could take months if not years to play out.
Consider, for example, how . It was a significant shift in federal policy for ESSA to allow states to include that factor in official judgments of their schools鈥� performance. The pandemic has only intensified interest in that issue for obvious reasons and posed a major challenge to addressing it. So the law might have played a key precursory role in schools鈥� work to address student absenteeism and attendance, even though it鈥檚 not driving attention to those issues the way the coronavirus has.
What will that mean for how the issue plays into ESSA accountability and related policy debates?
In a report for Bellwether Education Partners released last month estimating that 3 million students c, Hailly T.N. Korman, Bonnie O鈥橩eefe, and Matt Repka wrote that in response, education leaders 鈥渕ust develop and implement attendance intervention strategies that start with an informed understanding of students鈥� unmet needs鈥攁nd avoid punitive approaches that exacerbate those needs.鈥�
鈥淪tate and federal government leaders need to provide guidance, funding, and resources for schools and other social services to support these plans,鈥� the three authors also stated.
There鈥檚 a growing recognition in states that they need to be as flexible as they can be to address new circumstances, said Sara Kerr, who works at and has studied states鈥� efforts to use evidence to improve schools under ESSA.
She also said that the pandemic is underscoring 鈥渢he limits to which schools can solve some of those inequities鈥� on their own, and how those limits should drive attention to factors that ESSA didn鈥檛 really emphasize, like students鈥� access to internet and how many parents in a household are able to work from home.
鈥淭he districts and schools in particular are really in the weeds,鈥� Kerr said.
If a search for new solutions and data points incorporates new emphasis on evidence-based policies, Kerr said, it could produce helpful results. It鈥檚 possible the authors of ESSA as well as its proponents might be pleased by some attempts by educators to seek flexible solutions to pressing problems, even if they didn鈥檛 anticipate what precisely those problems would be.