Illustration: Paul Vismara
Curious about the Federal 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)? You could read all 1,061 pages — or U.S. Secretary of Education John King could personally impart the basics by challenging you to create a state accountability plan under the new law.
King (Ed.D. ’08), a former high school social studies teacher, did just that for students in TC’s annual School Law Institute in July. The Secretary headlined the week’s rock-star instructor lineup, which included Gary Orfield and Patricia Gándara, co-directors of the UCLA Civil Rights Project and leading authorities on school desegregation, affirmative action and serving immigrant students; TC Professor Michael Rebell, a prominent national authority on school-finance law and the right to an adequate education; and Dennis Parker, Director of the ACLU National Office’s Racial Justice Program. The Institute’s Faculty Chair, TC Professor of Law & Education Jay Heubert, litigated race-discrimination cases as a civil-rights lawyer at the Department of Justice and served as chief counsel to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Institute Co-Chair Rhoda Schneider is General Counsel and Senior Associate Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and has repeatedly served as the state’s interim Education Commissioner.
Like No Child Left Behind before it, ESSA commits states to college and career standards and continued close attention to achievement gaps. Yet it also requires use of non-academic indicators such as student engagement or school climate, while scaling back federal control. “We’re putting in civil rights guardrails,” King said, “but states will make decisions about interventions and using federal funds.”
“Leaving it up to the states creates some problems,” King acknowledged. Does inclusive debate simply beget “fluffy indicators that let schools off the hook”? How will besieged state education departments manage the new measures?
We’re putting in civil rights guardrails, but the states will make decisions about interventions and using federal funds.”
—John King (Ed.D.'08), U.S. Secretary of Education
Still, it was clear that considerations like school climate matter to King. He closed by recalling losing both his parents as a young boy and later being asked to leave boarding school. He wished the school had offered more options for students in difficulty.
Later, English Education Ph.D. student Valon Beasley emailed: “Secretary King made me know that he is listening and he is watching the tragedies and inequities that African-American male youth are suffering from today. I will use his life and words to motivate and transform the minds of New York students, various educators and hopefully, diverse people in the world.”
The 2017 School Law Institute runs July 10-14. For information visit www.tc.edu/schoollaw.