Achievement & Assessment

U.S. Congress Develops Framework for ESEA

By November 20, 2015 No Comments

The House and Senate Education Committee staff have been working on an Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) framework, a proposal to reconcile the differences that exist between the House and Senate ESEA proposals, as passed this summer.

Noelle Ellerson of NREAC and AASA provides this two-fold summary: The first half details what we know about the framework and the second half is a call to action.

At this point, the proposal is something that AASA would endorse, should the outline mirror what is in the statute. The call to action is designed to support your advocacy—your outreach to your entire Congressional delegation—as a way to educate them on the importance of supporting an ESEA reauthorization and why this proposal is a very strong starting point.

NREAC/AASA has worked with hill staff, reporters and advocates to piece together what we know about what is (and isn’t!) in the proposal. The summary here within is subject to change, given that this is based on conversations and summaries, and there is not yet an actual bill.

TOPLINE: This conference framework is an improvement over current law. It takes the pendulum of federal overreach and prescription—rampant in current law—and returns autonomy and flexibility to the state/local level/ With this flexibility comes great responsibility, as state and local education agencies will have a much more explicit say in the structure—and ultimate success—of their accountability workbooks. The framework represents a compromise between the very partisan (Republican) House bill and the bi-partisan Senate bill. IN reconciling those differences, a very basic way to look at this framework is as ‘somewhere in between a very conservative House bill and the moderate Senate compromise.’ Read the report.