The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law by President Obama on December 10th of 2015 (Congress.gov, n.d.). A reauthorization of of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, ESSA’s passage markeds a major shift in education policy as the first law to reduce the federal government’s role in public education since the 1980s. Broadly speaking, ESSA returned decision making power from the federal government to state and local authorities, granting them more say in everything from testing and teacher accountability to how to handle “low performing schools” (Johnson 2016, 1).
In many ways, ESSA was a reaction to its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, which significantly expanded the role of the federal …show more content…
The testing requirements were cumbersome, the annual progress benchmarks were unrealistic, and the ensuing sanctions threatened school budgets across the country. Eventually, the Department of Education attempted to alleviate the situation by granting waivers to states that exempted them from certain requirements of NCLB in exchange for compliance with a set of administration goals (McGuinn 2016). However, the waiver program proved to be similarly unpopular and was widely criticized as an overreach of the federal government (Black …show more content…
Although it is rare for a real world policy to perfectly fit a theoretical framework for policy making, ESSA is a textbook example of John Kingdon’s theory of major policy change. According to Kingdon’s framework, “the greatest policy changes grow out of that coupling of problems, policy proposals, and politics” (Kingdon 2011, 19). A close look at the circumstances from which ESSA developed validates this claim. Unanimous recognition of the need for a “fix” to prior legislation combined with key political developments prompted a brief period of political bipartisanship and willingness to compromise on proposed solutions, thus—as Kingdon predicts—opening the window for legislative
In many ways, ESSA was a reaction to its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, which significantly expanded the role of the federal …show more content…
The testing requirements were cumbersome, the annual progress benchmarks were unrealistic, and the ensuing sanctions threatened school budgets across the country. Eventually, the Department of Education attempted to alleviate the situation by granting waivers to states that exempted them from certain requirements of NCLB in exchange for compliance with a set of administration goals (McGuinn 2016). However, the waiver program proved to be similarly unpopular and was widely criticized as an overreach of the federal government (Black …show more content…
Although it is rare for a real world policy to perfectly fit a theoretical framework for policy making, ESSA is a textbook example of John Kingdon’s theory of major policy change. According to Kingdon’s framework, “the greatest policy changes grow out of that coupling of problems, policy proposals, and politics” (Kingdon 2011, 19). A close look at the circumstances from which ESSA developed validates this claim. Unanimous recognition of the need for a “fix” to prior legislation combined with key political developments prompted a brief period of political bipartisanship and willingness to compromise on proposed solutions, thus—as Kingdon predicts—opening the window for legislative