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Tori Darrow

EDU 101 201

Dr. Stock

8 February 2016

A Change in Education

In 2002, No Child Left Behind was established by the Bush Administration. Although it

planned to help the American education system, the Act had many flaws to it which created

many problems to the nations schools. In 2010, President Obama created a new blueprint for the

law calling it the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA Reauthorization: A Blueprint

for Reform). The ESEA contains several new goals including improving the school and states

flexibility on spending, broadens curriculum, rewards growth, strengthens teachers, and supports

local reform (U.S. Department of Education). In NCLB, schools lowered their standards and

achievement levels. This did not help prepare students for college and a career, but the ESEA

does.

One of the first main goals of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is to raise the

educational standards and expectations in schools so that all students are prepared for college and

a career after high school. It calls for the states to create a transparent system to measure and

report the students growth. This allows teachers, students, and parents to know who is falling

behind and who is staying on track (U.S. Department of Education). This is important because

teachers and students should be aware of their progress, not for the school system, but so that the

student can properly learn the curriculum and understand it. When the teacher notices a student
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falling behind, it allows them to focus on helping the students understand the work. Measuring

progress leads to the second goal for ESEA.

The second goal to measure progress and then report it calls for testing. These reports do

not call for more standardized tests, but rather better tests (U.S. Department of Education).

Having standardized test does not help the student, and it cant really report their progress. A

standardized test simply compares the students score to other students scores. This leads to goal

3 better assessments. Instead of teaching children to the test, creating better assessments will

help the child focus on learning and understanding the topics in class. The fourth goal is to

loosen the federal regulations so that teachers have the freedom to use their own skill and

knowledge in their classrooms (U.S. Department of Education). This will also take the burden

away from the teachers on teaching to the test. The fifth goal is to recognize and reward success.

By doing this, it will help stimulate growth (U.S. Department of Education). When a person is

rewarded for doing something well, they will want to keep doing it and focus on getting better to

get a better reward. This will also create a nice attitude in wanted to learn and be well rounded in

education.

Students will be eager to learn, and teachers will be eager to teach if they are being

rewarded. This will help in wanting to learn a variety of subjects that help the student become

well rounded. Some of these subjects include social studies, sciences, arts, foreign languages,

physical education, business, and technology (U.S. Department of Education). The last goal is

the most important, and revolves around each of the other goals to focus on growth (U.S.

Department of Education). Focusing on growth will help in raising expectations, measuring and

reporting, and will help in recognizing the success in the nations schools.
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Another important aspect of ESEA is its focus on teachers and principals. No Child Left

Behind caused many teachers to be accused of many things that were not their fault, including

failing students and failing schools. ESEA provides multiple measures of effective teaching to

give teachers the feedback that they need. These measures include classroom observations,

portfolios if the teachers work, student and parent feedback, as well as student growth data (U.S.

Department of Education). Principals are to support and give meaningful feedback to teachers, as

well as being accountable for hiring and developing teachers. ESEA also provides state funding

to develop, evaluate, and reward principals that create a vision for success (U.S. Department of

Education). Different from NCLB, teachers under the blueprint if ESEA will be treated as the

professionals that they are.

This blueprint seems to allow the nations schools to help its students raise their

achievement goals and expectations in what they will be learning in the classroom. The Obama

administration is now raising the bar, supporting teachers and educators, calls for critical

thinking, plans on fewer failing schools, and is measuring the schools achievement and growth to

better prepare the countries students

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Works Cited

ESEA Reauthorization: A Blueprint for Reform. (2011, May 26). Retrieved from

U.S. Department of Education website: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/

blueprint/index.html

U.S. Department of Education. (2011, May 24). A Teacher's Guide to Fixing No

Child Left Behind [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=LV7od-RU1Jw