JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed into law a major education law setting U.S. public schools on a new course of accountability.
Obama signed the bipartisan rewrite of No Child Left Behind at the White House on Thursday. Watch the President’s signing ceremony here.
The law will change the way teachers are evaluated and how the poorest performing schools are pushed to improve.
Obama calls the law a “Christmas miracle.” He’s praising Republicans and Democrats for coming together to pass the long-awaited legislation.
Obama says the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law had the right goals. But he says in practice it fell short and used a cookie-cutter approach.
The new law turns more decision-making powers back to the states.
In a media release, KNEA President Mark Farr said, “The dedicated professionals working in Kansas public schools continue to push for what’s best for all students. Parents and teachers want equal opportunity for all of our students to succeed, this federal legislation gives us a foundation to provide that opportunity.”
This legislation begins to close the opportunity gaps for students by providing a new system that includes an ‘opportunity dashboard’ with indicators of school success and student support. Not only does it reduce the amount of standardized testing in schools, but it decouples high-stakes decisions and statewide testing so students have more time to develop critical thinking while educators do what they love — inspire a lifelong love of learning.
Leading up to ESSA’s passage, educators mobilized in Kansas and across the nation, using face-to- face meetings with lawmakers, phone calls, petitions, emails and social media to urge Congress to bring the joy of teaching and learning back to the classroom and help close opportunity and resource gaps so that all students have access to a well-rounded education. Educators nationwide made nearly a half million individual contacts to members of Congress. Utilizing its statewide education advocacy messaging platform (at www.joinusks.org), nearly 1,000 citizens and members of KNEA were urged to push for the passage of ESSA on behalf of Kansas’s students.
“The U.S. Senate took a bold and historic step to usher in a new era in public education,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “This is a deserved victory for public education because the Every Student Succeeds Act will ensure all students have equal opportunity to a high-quality public education regardless of ZIP Code.”