Parents of kids in public schools — including charter schools — won’t necessarily notice big changes when the state Department of Education implements the Every Student Succeeds Act next school year.
“You’re not gonna see a radical difference,” said Art Souza, West Hawaii Complex Area superintendent.
Souza described the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as a continuation of No Child Left Behind’s standards-driven policies, but without some of the rigid federal mandates, including strict benchmarks like requiring 100 percent of students to read at grade level by 2014.
“The ethic behind the law was terrific,” Souza said of No Child Left Behind, but added benchmarks like that are “not realistic.”
Lindsay Chambers, speaking on behalf of the state Department of Education, said plans to implement the new law “are still being developed, so it’s difficult to provide specific examples of impacts at this time.”
Now, the act is giving states more control in developing those standards. The Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law in December 2015, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which has guided federal education standards since 2002. That law was roundly criticized as taking too much of a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education.
ESSA is expected to be implemented for the 2017-18 school year.
The public will have the chance to learn more about the federal act and how it will shape Hawaii’s education policy during town hall meetings planned in Kailua-Kona and Hilo. The first is 4:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Kealakehe High School and the second is 4:30-6:30 p.m. Aug. 24 at Waiakea High School.
Those who attend will have the opportunity to learn about the Department of Education’s efforts to draw up a plan to ensure the state’s public schools are in full compliance with the federal law.
While ESSA gives states more flexibility in creating standards, they must still prove the standards are likely to raise graduation rates and student achievement, including reporting performance by school on a variety of indicators, in addition to a “summative result,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.
But, they now have more say in how they gather the data to report to the feds.
Starting in fall 2005, NCLB required schools to test students in math and language arts every year from the third through eighth grade. The new law still requires schools to test students’ math and reading skills, but allows states to use a single test or a number of interim assessments so long as the tests result in a “single summative score” demonstrating student achievement. The DOE says the state’s “Smarter Balanced Assessment” already meets the requirements of the new law.
Allowing states to focus on student growth, rather than measuring kids against standardized benchmarks is one of the appeals of the new law, Souza said.
“Every student has unique learning needs,” he explained.
Doing that, Souza said, allows lessons to be individualized for students’ needs. Students who learn at slower rates are measured by how they are growing and students who learn at a faster pace can have an opportunity to accelerate in their education.
However, some Hawaii leaders have already raised concerns about whether the flexibility that made the bill successful will actually manifest itself in reality.
In a July 29 letter to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Gov. David Ige, along with Board of Education Chairperson Lance A. Mizumoto and Superintendent Kathryn S. Matayoshi, said the Every Student Succeeds Act was “a welcome change” from No Child Left Behind, but that recently released regulations make the law less flexible than they were led to believe.
“Aspects of the proposed regulations seem to revert back to the one-size-fits-all approach, which may limit the opportunities that have been purported to be available,” stated the letter.
For example, NCLB required states to track the performance of specific “subgroups” of students, such as racial minorities, impoverished students and students with limited English skills.
Those subgroups were carried over into the Every Student Succeeds Act. However, the state can no longer combine subgroups, which it said “allowed for thousands of more students to be included in their schools’ accountability rating,” and prevented students who fell into two categories from being counted twice.
This approach resulted in more than 2,000 more special education students being included in school accountability assessments than would have been under the NCLB system, the department said in its comments to the feds.
The state is currently awaiting an answer from the feds if Hawaii can keep combining subgroups an option.
The governor and others are also taking issue with the federal government also requiring states to flag schools as needing “comprehensive support and improvement” for the 2017-18 school year.
