Good News for Local Citizens

An interesting event has occurred on the road to implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act.  As sometimes takes place when government agency rules are written to define how a new law is to be implemented, the fundamental intent of that law can be changed.  This is apparently the case with ESSA. According to a recent news story in Education Week, Congress is now taking steps to preserve the intent of ESSA by blocking the law’s accountability rules written by the U.S. Department of Education.  Supporters of blocking these rules said that, “in many instances, they were too prescriptive and went against the spirit of ESSA, which lawmakers crafted in large part to return more accountability decisions to states and districts.” All of this is good news for those who see ESSA as an opportunity to provide local citizens a stronger voice in shaping statewide education policy.