The Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law at the end of 2015 and is a major overhaul of education policy in the United States. In this episode, find out how the new law will likely lead to a massive transfer of taxpayer Money into private pockets.
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S. 1177: Every Student Succeeds Act Bill Highlights
Section 4: Transition
Title I: Improving basic programs operated by State and local educational agencies
Funding
State Plans
Testing
- States will be required to test students in math, reading, and science and is allowed to test in any other subject.
- Math and reading tests are required each year from grades 3 through 8, and once in high school.
- Science tests will be required once during grades 3 through 5, once during grades 6 through 9, and once during grades 10 through 12.
- Results will be reported by race, ethnicity, wealth, disability, English proficiency status, gender, and migrant status.
- State and local educational agencies must include a policy that allows parents to opt their child out of mandated tests.
School Choice
Secretary of Education’s Role
Accountability
Local Educational Agency Plans
Parents Right to Know
Schoolwide Programs
- Can be administered by for-profit providers
- Funds from Federal, State, and local grants can be consolidated and used to upgrade the entire educational program of schools where at least 40% of the children come from low income families.
- Schoolwide programs can be exempted by the Secretary of Education from regulations governing education grant programs.
- Activities can include mental Health counseling, mentoring services, “specialized instructional support” services, college courses, activities for teachers, and preschool programs for children under 6 years old.
- High schools can use the money for dual enrollment of underperforming kids and can pay for teacher training, tuition and fees, books, “innovative delivery methods”, and transportation to and from the program.
“Targeted Assistance Schools”
Children Enrolled in Private Schools
- Upon request, local educational agencies need to provide children in private schools with services including testing, counseling, mentoring, one-on-one tutoring, dual or concurrent enrollment, radio equipment, televisions, computer equipment, and other tech to “address their needs”
- “Educational services and other benefits for such private school children shall be equitable in comparison to services and other benefits or public school children…”
- Private school children’s share of funds will be based on the number of low income children who attend private schools.
- Funds to private school children can be provided directly or through an “entity” or “third party contractor”.
- State educational agencies must provide services to private school children if the local agencies don’t, and they can do so by contracting with private organizations.
Title II: Preparing, training, and recruiting high-quality teachers, principals, or other school leaders
Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program
Civics Courses
Title III: Language Instruction for English learners and immigrant students
Funding
Process
Title IV: 21st Century Schools
Funding
Community Learning Centers Funding
Purpose
- Private entities are eligible for 5 year grants to operate Community Learning Centers for extra education programs.
- State applications will be deemed approved if the Secretary of Education takes no action within 120 days.
- Applying entities get to decide the purpose of the Community Learning Centers they will operate and must include that information in their application.
- Activities can include tutoring, mentoring, financial and environmental literacy programs, nutritional education, physical education, services for the disabled, after school English learning classes, cultural programs, technology education programs, library services, Parenting skills programs, drug and violence prevention programs, computer science, and career readiness programs.
Charter Schools Purpose
- “To increase the number of high-quality charter schools available to students across the United States”
- “To encourage States to provide support to charter schools for facilities financing in an amount more nearly commensurate to the amount States typically provide for traditional public schools”
Funding
National Activities Funding
- $200 million increasing to $220 million per year through 2020
Programs
Title VIII: General Provisions
Department of Education Staff
- Within one year of enactment (December 2016), the Secretary of Education must identify all projects that were consolidated or eliminated by ESSA and fire the number of employees who were employed administering or working on those programs.
Control of Funds
Military Recruiters
State Opt-Out
Title IX: Education for Homeless and Other Laws
Sound Clip Sources
- Forum: Charter and Private Schools, Forum hosted by Senator Tim Scott (GA), February 9, 2015.
- Panelists:
- Frederick “Rick” Hess, American Enterprise Institute
- Ann Duplessis, Former Louisiana State Senator, Senior Vice President for Liberty Bank & Trust, President of Louisiana Federation for Children
- Emily Kim, Executive Vice President of Success Academy Charter Schools
- Timestamps and Transcripts
- {14:15} Rick Hess: Sitting immediately next to me, we’ve got Ann Duplessis. Ann’s a former state senator in Louisiana. She’s president of Louisiana Federation for Children, where she partners with local and national policy leaders to promote educational options. She continues to work full time while she does this, as Senior Vice President for Liberty Bank & Trust in New Orleans. Oh! She’s also the chair of the Louisiana State Board of Supervisors. Following Hurricane Katrina, it was Ann who authored a bill which allowed the state to take over the majority of schools in New Orleans Parish, which lead to the thriving charter-school movement that you see in New Orleans today.
- {40:50} Ann Duplessis:Unfortunately, where we are today is, this is big business. Unknown Speaker: That’s right. Duplessis: Education is big business. We are fighting money; we are fighting tradition; we are fighting people’s jobs; and so until and unless we can get past the issues that this is some tradition that we must maintain, until we can have people understand that we need to create new traditions, until we can get past that the jobs that we’re talking about are not jobs that we need to protect, if those jobs aren’t protecting our kids, we have to get past that. And unless we can get our elected officials to understand that, this will all continue to be more of a challenge.
- {48:00} Emily Kim-Charters: I want to give one example of a piece of paper that we really, truly dislike, and it’s—every year there is this requirement that teachers who are not certified have to send home in the backpack folder for their scholars a piece of paper saying, just wanted you to know, parents, I’m not highly qualified. So, yes, I’ve been teaching for five years, and my scholars are in the top one percent in the state of New York, but I just wanted you to know that I didn’t have that thing called highly qualified, and somebody thought that I should write you and tell you and let you know. I mean, it’s to a level that is truly, truly absurd; whereas, we would want the teacher to write home and say, look, this is what we are doing to get your scholar to the highest potential, and I’ve been doing it for five years very successfully, and this is what you need to do is bring your child to school on time, pick your child up from school on time, get the homework done, and make sure that they are motivated at school. And that’s what we’d like to do, and we have to do the other thing instead.
- Hearing: Expanding Educational Opportunity Through School Choice, House Education and the Workforce Committee, February 3, 2016.
- Watch on Youtube
- Witness:
- Timestamps and Transcripts
- {27:15} Gerard Robinson: I can tell you quite clearly that school choice is not a sound bite; it’s a social movement. From 1990 to 2015, over 40 states have introduced different types of school-choice legislation, both public and private.
- Video: Interview with David Brian, President & CEO of Entertainment Properties Trust, August 15, 2012
- Video: Three-Minute Video Explaining the Common Core State Standards by CGCS Video Maker, 2012.
Additional Reading
- Article: Lawsuit accuses Arizona charter schools of teaching history with religious slant by Garrett Mitchell, The Arizona Republic, September 16, 2016.
- Article: LA charter school abruptly closes for lack of students by Brenda Gazzar, Los Angeles Daily News, September 15, 2016.
- Article: Lake Forest Charter School, Liberty Bank & Trust Present 4th Annual ‘Cocktails And Blues’ Benefit Featuring Gina Brown, Biz New Orleans, August 31, 2016.
- Article: A Sea of Charter Schools in Detroit Leaves Students Adrift by Kate Zernike, New York Times, June 28, 2016.
- Article: Inside the Hedge Fund Infatuation with Charter Schools by Stephen Vita, Investopedia, March 9, 2016.
- Article: GOP Candidates Probably Can’t Repeal Common Core by Lauren Camera, US News & World Report, March 4, 2016.
- Article: Why Education Activists Are Furious at ExxonMobil’s CEO by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, December 29, 2015.
- Article: Business Gets Schooled by Peter Elkind, Fortune, December 23, 2015.
- Article: 10 Years After Katrina, New Orleans’ All-Charter School System Has Proven a Failure by Colleen Kimmet, In These Times, August 28, 2015.
- Article: The Big Easy’s Grand Experiment by Thomas Toch, US News & World Report, August 18, 2015.
- Report: Brought to You by Wal-Mart? How the Walton Family Foundation’s Ideological Pursuit is Damaging Charter Schooling, American Federation of Teachers, June 2015
- Article: Charter groups top unions in lobbying, campaign spending by Bill Mahoney, Eliza Shapiro, and Jessica Bakeman, Politico, February 20, 2015.
- Article: Who Is Profiting From Charters? The Big Bucks Behind Charter School Secrecy, Financial Scandal and Corruption by Kristin Rawls, AlterNet, January 21, 2015.
- Report: A Growing Movement: America’s Largest Charter School Communities by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, December 2014.
- Article: 120 American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric by Scott Beauchamp, The Atlantic, August 12, 2014.
- Article: A dozen problems with charter schools by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, May 20, 2014.
- Blog post: Big Profits in Not-for-Profit Charter Schools by Alan Singer, The Huffington Post, April 7, 2014.
- Article: Why wealthy foreigners invest in U.S. charter schools by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, February 15, 2013.
- Article: KKR Partnership Makes an Education Push by Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2011.
- Article: U.S. Gives Charter Schools a Big Push in New Orleans by Susan Saulny, The New York Times, June 13, 2006.
- Article: N.O. Teachers Union Loses Its Force in Storm’s Wake by Michael Hoover, Times-Picayune, March 5, 2006.
- Article: Students Return to Big Changes in New Orleans by Susan Saulny, The New York Times, January 4, 2006.
- Commentary: The Promise of Vouchers by Milton Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2005.
Additional Information
Music Presented in This Episode
Cover Art
Design by Only Child Imaginations
Jennifer Briney started paying attention to world events while studying in Germany in the spring of 2003 when the United States overthrew the government of Iraq. After experiencing the war from outside the United States, she started asking questions about her government. Every answer led to fifty more questions. This led to a thirst for information that she is still unable to quench.
Over the years, the feeling like she was the only person paying attention to this information was making Jen insane so in late 2012, she launched Congressional Dish in order to share the information, to have an emotional outlet for dealing with the discoveries, and to create a community of people who were interested in Congress’s effect on our lives. Congressional Dish is now her full-time career, thanks entirely to the support from our growing community of producers from all over the world.
