The Every Student Succeeds Act is in the process of replacing No Child Left Behind in Iowa, and education experts say they are excited to see the changes.
Staci Hupp, communications director for the Iowa Department of Education, said the program will give schools more ownership over their accountability and support from the state giving more authority to local districts.
The law was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in late 2015, Hupp said, and states were then required to develop plans to implement the act in their schools. Iowa has written three drafts of its plan, she said, receiving online feedback each time. The final version of the plan, she said, was sent to the U.S. Department of Education on Sept. 18, and the state is waiting to hear from the federal government within 180 days. Hopefully, she said, the act will be in place across the state for the 2018-19 school year.
“We look forward to hearing from the U.S. Department of Education and making the shift from implementation to offering support and guidance to schools,” she said.
The planning process for the plan was inclusive, Hupp said, and it involved numerous public forums, state advisory committee meetings, 11 education work teams, eight focus groups in matters such as fine arts and gifted students, and written comments on each draft of the plan.
Diane Schumacher, the director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment for the Iowa City School District, said the district is anxious to get its hands on the act to begin implementing it in schools.
“[The program] provides a dashboard of different metrics to see where we’re growing and what needs work,” she said.
As the act replaces No Child, Hupp said, schools will no longer have to focus so much on testing when it comes to assessing school performance.
“No Child Left Behind was much too test-focused,” she said. “Every Student Succeeds Act gives opportunities to use other measures.”
Some of these new measures where required by the federal government, Hupp said, including student participation, academic achievement and proficiency, student growth, graduation rates, and progress in English-language proficiency.
Iowa also included a postsecondary readiness index, she said, which is still being developed.
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Nancy Langguth, a University of Iowa associate dean for teacher education and student services, said the program will also focus on conditions for learning, which No Child did not include.
To measure learning conditions, she said, students will be surveyed with the Iowa Youth Survey, which questions students on learning conditions such as safety, engagement, and school climate.
Langguth said asking these questions is a good starting point to see where districts can improve upon measures. Relating to students, enforcing parameters and rules, and giving meaningful instruction are key elements to a teacher doing a job well, she said. By not only assessing schools on content, she said, districts can provide a better education.