Education bill shifts authority back to states

The goal of the legislation and the gist of its title are the same. The alphabet soup and, in theory at least, the methodology are different.

This week the government of the United States came as close to unanimity on the usually volatile issue of public education as anything in national politics can get right now. The Senate, by an overwhelming 85-12 vote, gave final passage Wednesday to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaces the expired and, in recent years, almost universally vilified No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The House had already passed the legislation by a similar landslide of 359-64, and President Obama was to sign it into law on Thursday.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., a member of the committee that drafted the final version of the bill (and onetime chairman of the Georgia Board of Education during the governorship of Zell Miller), said the new education law "focuses on student improvement, student achievement and sees to it that every child can succeed." The first two are right-minded and essential; the last is a noble goal if not, in the foreseeable future, a realistic expectation.

The key features of the legislation are its reduced emphasis on testing and a virtual end to federal involvement in state and local assessment of teachers and schools. The federal requirement for statewide math and reading tests in grades 3-8, and one in high school, remains from NCLB, but with less emphasis on them as a determinant of overall performance.

The new standards have the broad support of congressional Republicans and Democrats, the White House, governors, school administrators and teachers. Sid Chapman, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said the major improvement over NCLB is that "educators will have a seat at the table when it comes to making decisions that affect their students and classrooms."

The waivers the federal government had granted states (including Georgia) from No Child mandates will of course end -- because No Child is no longer in effect. The legislation should also put an end (it is devoutly to be hoped) to political hyperventilation over Common Core, a state-generated set of proposed standards debated hotly, and sometimes hysterically, by politicians some of whom couldn't have told you what they were.

This combination of optimism and broad consensus is encouraging, and there can be no losers in a successful overhaul of public education. Still, two cautionary notes should be kept in mind.

One is that it was just 13 years ago that No Child Left Behind passed with similarly wide support. If ESSA has kept what works and jettisoned what doesn't, then we can indeed move forward.

The other is that in Georgia, the tension between federal and state control over public schools is just one front in education politics. The battle over state vs. local control is just now heating up.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Education bill shifts authority back to states."