If you don’t regularly follow the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) “Capital Connections” weekly e-newsletter, you might want to tune in and check out their comparison of ESSA NCLB here. ASCD’s clarification on the implementation of ESSA communicates that:
“NCLB waivers expire on August 1, 2016, and ESSA will be implemented as the law of the land beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.” ASCD, Capital Connections
In a previous post I provided links to a set of comparative tables created by the Alliance for Excellent Education. However, I appreciate ASCD’s tables for several explicit references pertaining to the impacts of ESSA on English learners – and even more specifically in the areas of Assessments and Accountability. You can find the full set of ASCD comparative tables here.
“[ESSA] shifts accountability for English language learners into Title I; allows schools to phase in the use of English language learner’s test results for accountability purposes.” — ASCD, Capital Connections
While it remains to be seen how MO DESE* and MELL** will communicate the impacts of ESSA to Missouri educators of English learners, I’ll post information as it becomes available. From what I can see at this early stage of development, it seems that in several instances MO DESE has more rigorous expectations of districts than the Feds. Time will tell if I’m wrong in my assumption, but the way I see it unless MO DESE were to relax its expectations of educators in our state I imagine Missouri will continue status quo – at least in the short term. This article from Melissa Tooley over at New America aligns with my thoughts:
“Under ESSA, states still must test students in grades 3-8 and once in high school and use test results to inform their assessment of schools’ performance. And states are still required to break out school performance by student demographic subgroups, and intervene in schools where specific subgroups of students are chronically performing extremely poorly. But ESSA allows states to develop their own school accountability rating systems, providing only rough guidelines for how to identify schools in need of improvement. Also, ESSA limits the number of schools states must target for improvement and expects local school districts to step in and help struggling schools. States must only step in if districts are unsuccessful in helping schools improve. And while that’s all actually quite similar to what states with NCLB waivers are doing now, under ESSA, there is no requirement that states put teacher accountability and improvement systems in place, though they have the option to do so.” – Melissa Tooley, Reporter, NewAmerica.org
An interesting point that Tooley raises near the end of her article is that one downfall of NCLB was that its requirement for school improvement wasn’t explicit enough — many schools had no idea how to initiate steps to create the necessary changes. Tooley believes under ESSA schools may continue to sweep quality improvements of teachers (and therefore, student learning) under the rug as long as the “larger community is content” that a “majority of students are doing well”. The implications for ELs is that historically they remain a small enough subgroup in many districts that it proves Tooley’s observation sadly valid. But as the numbers of ELs in Missouri continues to grow, those of us who focus on this amazing demographic of students may find increasing opportunities to showcase the strengths of ELs and EL Education Specialists.
What are your questions or thoughts about the impact of ESSA on EL education?
*Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
**Missouri Migrant Education and English Language Learners