ESEA: A Blueprint for Reform

The U.S. Department of Education published The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in March of 2010. This document was written by Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education and Carmel Martin, the Assistant Secretary of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. President Barack Obama introduced his Blueprint with a powerful letter outlining the necessity for this document. He discussed that every child needs and deserves a world-class education and how this is a moral imperative along with a shared responsibility of the educators, the children’s families and their communities. President Obama has created a new goal for our country which is that by the year 2020 the United States will once again lead the world in college completion. The Department of Education has invested 350 million dollars to help support the States with all of the requirements outlined in the Blueprint.

I am going to structure this paper the way that our course is structured. I am going to highlight the foundation, principles and issues of the ESEA. This was a lengthy and technical document so I am going to attempt to format it into a much more user-friendly version.

Foundation
The foundation of the Blueprint is that all students can learn and that they are all worth our investment. Education is the great equalizer. Every student whether an English Learner, Gifted and Talented or a student with disabilities deserves and needs an education that will prepare them for college and their future career. The President believes, “That we must educate ourselves into economic security.”

Principles
There are five key priorities for the Blueprint:
1.College- and Career-Ready Students-Through developing new state-wide standards in the areas of English language arts and mathematics, creating better state-wide assessments aligned with the new standards and a well –rounded education that includes technology, the arts,foreign languages and much more
2.Great Teachers and Leaders in Every School-Through recognizing, encouraging and rewarding excellence, create a new teacher evaluation tool, identify effective and highly effective teachers and put them at the high-need schools and the states will track the effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation programs
3.Equity and Opportunity for All Students-Through rewarding progress and success at high-performing schools, requiring interventions at the lowest-performing schools, creating additional support and interventions for our diverse learners so that all student can access the curriculum, and creating equity by giving all schools whether high- or low-poverty the same amount of resources
4.Raise the Bar and Reward Excellence-Through continuing Race to the Top’s incentives for systemic reforms at the state level, supporting the expansion of high-performing public charter schools along with public school choice options and increasing access to college-level, dual credit and AP courses in high-need schools
5.Promote Innovation and Continuous Improvement-Through supporting local and nonprofit leaders with the Investing in Innovation Fund, creating new competitive flexible funding streams and prioritizing programs that engage families and community
members along with focusing on the students’ health and safety

Issues
The issues surrounding the Blueprint are:
-Not focusing on student achievement level on one standardized test but rather growth and progress over years
-Allowing for more choice and control at the local level rather than dictating what a state must do with a low-performing school
-The amount of remedial courses that students are enrolled in upon entering college
-Low-performing schools that continue to under-perform
-The diverse needs of our students such as English Language students, migrant students, homeless students
-Effective and highly effective teachers not being recognized or rewarded
-Ineffective statewide assessments that do not supply the teachers with sufficient data
-The achievement gap
-Ineffective teachers and ineffective principals at high-need schools
-Students’ families that are not involved in the children’s education