Elementary and Secondary Education Act

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Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
Great Seal of the United States (obverse).svg
Enacted bythe 89th United States Congress
Citations
Public law Pub. L.   89–10
Statutes at Large 79  Stat.   27
Codification
Acts amended Pub. L.   81–874, 64  Stat.   1100; Pub. L.   83–531, 68  Stat.   533
Titles amended 20 U.S.C.: Education
U.S.C. sections created 20 U.S.C. ch. 70
Legislative history
  • Introduced in the House as H.R. 2362
  • Passed the House on March 26, 1965 (263–153)
  • Passed the Senate on April 9, 1965 (73–18)
  • Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1965
Major amendments
Bilingual Education Act
Education Amendments of 1972
Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974
Improving America's Schools Act of 1994
No Child Left Behind Act
Every Student Succeeds Act
Lyndon B. Johnson at the ESEA signing ceremony, with his childhood schoolteacher Ms. Kate Deadrich Loney President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Elementary and Secondary Education Act - C148-92-WH65.jpg
Lyndon B. Johnson at the ESEA signing ceremony, with his childhood schoolteacher Ms. Kate Deadrich Loney

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1965. Part of Johnson's "War on Poverty", the act has been one of the most far-reaching laws affecting education passed by the United States Congress, and was reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Contents

Johnson proposed a major reform of federal education policy in the aftermath of his landslide victory in the 1964 United States presidential election, and his proposal quickly led to the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The act provides federal funding to primary and secondary education, with funds authorized for professional development, instructional materials, resources to support educational programs, and parental involvement promotion. The act emphasizes equal access to education, aiming to shorten the achievement gaps between students by providing federal funding to support schools with children from impoverished families.

Since 1965, ESEA has been modified and reauthorized by Congress several times. The Bilingual Education Act provides support for bilingual education and educational efforts for Native Americans and other groups. The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 prohibits discrimination against students and teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) introduced a testing regime designed to promote standards-based education. The Every Student Succeeds Act retained some of the testing requirements established by the NCLB, but shifted accountability provisions to the states. [1]

Historical context

President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose own ticket out of poverty was a public education in Texas, fervently believed that education was a cure for ignorance and poverty. [2] [ page range too broad ] Education funding in the 1960s was especially tight due to the demographic challenges posed by the large Baby Boomer generation, but Congress had repeatedly rejected increased federal financing for public schools. [3] Buoyed by his landslide victory in the 1964 election, Johnson sought to dramatically increase federal funding for education at the start of his second term. [4]

On January 25, 1965, President Johnson called for congressional efforts to improve education opportunities for America's children. Wary of popular fears regarding increased federal involvement in local schools, the Johnson administration advocated giving local districts great leeway to use the new funds, which were to be first distributed as grants to each state. Shortly thereafter, Carl D. Perkins (D-KY), the chair of the General Education Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor introduced H.R. 2362. With the Johnson administration's support, and after significant wrangling over the structure of the bill's funding formula committee, the full committee voted 23–8 to report it on March 2, 1965. Following a failed attempt to derail the bill by Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA), the House passed H.R. 2362 on March 26, 1965, in a 263–153 roll-call vote. [5]

As the Senate prepared to consider the education bill, S. 370, Democratic leaders urged their colleagues to pass it without amendment, in hopes of avoiding the bill being returned to the House to endure further reconsideration. S. 370 was assigned to the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, which subsequently reported the bill to the Senate floor with unanimous support. During the Senate debates, several amendments were introduced, though none passed. The Senate passed the bill in a 73–18 vote on April 7, 1965. [5]

President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law two days later on April 9, 1965. [5] For the first time, large amounts of federal money went to public schools. In practice ESEA meant helping all public school districts, with more money going to districts that had large proportions of students from poor families (which included all the big cities). [6] Also for the first time, private schools (most of them Catholic schools in the inner cities) received services, such as library funding, comprising about 12 percent of the ESEA budget. Though federal funds were involved, they were administered by local officials, and by 1977 it was reported that less than half of the funds were applied toward the education of children under the poverty line. Presidential biographer Robert Dallek further reports that researchers cited by Hugh Davis Graham soon found that poverty had more to do with family background and neighborhood conditions than the quantity of education a child received. Early studies suggested initial improvements for poor children helped by ESEA reading and math programs, but later assessments indicated that benefits faded quickly and left pupils little better off than those not in the schemes.

Sections of the original 1965 Act

[7]

New Titles Created by Early Amendments to 1965 Law

2008 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School Logo United States Department of Education Blue Ribbon School Logo.jpg
2008 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School Logo
1966 amendments (Public Law 89-750)
1967 amendments (Public Law 90-247)

Title I

Overview

Title I ("Title One"), which is a provision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed in 1965, is a program created by the U.S. Department of Education to distribute funding to schools and school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families, with the intention to create programs that will better children who have special needs that, without funding, could not be properly supported. [10] Funding is distributed first to state educational agencies (SEAs) which then allocate funds to local educational agencies (LEAs) which in turn dispense funds to public schools in need. [11] Title I also helps children from families that have migrated to the United States and youth from intervention programs who are neglected or at risk of abuse. The act allocates money for educational purposes for the next five fiscal years until it is reauthorized. [12] In addition, Title I appropriates money to the education system for the prosecution of high retention rates of students and the improvement of schools; these appropriations are carried out for five fiscal years until reauthorization. [12] [13] Funding for the Title I program could be facing substantial cuts as president-elect Donald Trump’s plans take shape. [14]

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, to be an eligible Title I school, at least 40% of a school's students must be from low-income families who qualify under the United States Census's definition of low-income, according to the U.S. Department of Education. [11] [15]

Title I mandates services both to eligible public school students and eligible private school students. [11] This is outlined in section 1120 of Title I, Part A of the ESEA as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Title I states that it gives priority to schools that are in obvious need of funds, low-achieving schools, and schools that demonstrate a commitment to improving their education standards and test scores.

There are two types of assistance that can be provided by Title I funds. [11] The first is a “schoolwide program” in which schools can dispense resources in a flexible manner. [16] The second is a “targeted assistance program” which allows schools to identify students who are failing or at risk of failing. [11]

Assistance for school improvement includes government grants, allocations, and reallocations based on the school's willingness to commit to improving their standing in the educational system. Each educational institution requesting these grants must submit an application that describes how these funds will be used in restructuring their school for academic improvement. [13]

Schools receiving Title I funding are regulated by federal legislation. Most recently, this legislation includes the No Child Left Behind Act, which was passed in 2001. [11] In the 2006–2007 school year, Title I provided assistance to over 17 million students who range from kindergarten through twelfth grade. [11] The majority of the funds (60%) were given to students between kindergarten through fifth grade. [11] The next highest group that received funding were students in sixth through eighth grade (21%). [11] Finally, 16% of the funds went to students in high school with 3% provided to students in preschool. [11]

Historical context

In its original conception, Title I under the ESEA, was designed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to close the skill gap in reading, writing and mathematics between children from low-income households who attend urban or rural school systems and children from the middle-class who attend suburban school systems. [16] This federal law came about during President Johnson's “War on Poverty” agenda. [12] Numerous studies have been conducted since the original authorization of the ESEA in 1965 that have shown that there is an inverse relationship between student achievement and school poverty. [12] Specifically, student achievement has been found to decrease as school poverty increases. [12] According to the United States Department of Education (USDOE), students from low-income households are “three times as likely to be low achievers if they attend high-poverty schools as compared to low-poverty schools.” [17] Within this context, Title I was conceived in order to compensate for the considerable educational deprivations associated with child poverty. [12]

Changes over time
First 15 years

In the years following 1965, Title I has changed considerably. [18] For the first 15 years, the program was reauthorized every three years with additional emphasis placed on how funds were to be allocated. [18] In the course of these reauthorizations, strict federal rules and regulations have been created for the guarantee that funds would be allocated solely to students in need – specifically students eligible for services based on socioeconomic status and academic achievement. [18]

Regulations also included added attention to uniformity in regards to how resources were distributed to Title I and non-Title I schools as well as the role of parents in the revisions of the program. [18] In addition to more stringent rules, during these years, policy makers outlined punitive actions that could be taken for those who were out of compliance. [18] Attention was also placed upon the assurance that Title I funds would not serve as replacements for local funds; but rather they would serve as subsidiary resources. [18] These federal regulations, which were focused on financial resources, influenced local Title I programs in many ways. [18] Pull-out programs were adopted by Title I schools in order to comply with the financial stipulations that were made in the initial reauthorizations. [18] These programs separated eligible students from ineligible ones to ensure that those who were in-need would benefit from the program. [18] By 1978, in response to the extensive criticism of pull-outs on the grounds that they were asynchronous with the instruction occurring in classrooms, another option for providing assistance to students was introduced, the school wide approach. [18] Schools with a student body in which the make-up had 100% or more low-income students could use Title I funds for the entire school's improvement rather than for specific individuals. [18] Despite this amendment, local fund requirements prevented all eligible students from using the school wide approach.

The 1980s

During the Reagan Administration, Congress passed the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) in 1981 to reduce federal regulations of Title I. [19] This reflected the administration's stance that resource control should be in the hands of states and local jurisdictions rather than at a federal level. [19] Despite the change outlined by the ECIA and the new designation of Title I as Chapter I, little was done to implement it and traditional Title I practices, like the use of pull-outs, continued. [18]

As the financial regulations became incorporated into practice, the conversation shifted around Title I to student achievement. [18] In 1988, the Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement Act, re-focused Title I on cultivating school improvement and excellent programs. [18] The additions that were made through this legislation called for synchrony between Chapter I and classroom instruction, it raised the achievement standard for low-income students by emphasizing advanced skills instead of basic ones and increased parental involvement. [18] It also had two new provisions: program improvement and school wide projects. [20] Program improvements were modifications that would occur when students who received funding were not improving. [20] The school wide projects altered the requirement that local funds had to match school wide program funding by Title I, allowing a larger number of high need schools to implement school wide programming. [18] [20]

From the 1990s to the present

A 1993 National Assessment noted shortcomings of the 1980s alterations to Title I. [18] These catalyzed the introduction of the 1994 Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), which significantly revised the original ESEA.

This was the last major alteration prior to those made by No Child Left Behind. The IASA attempted to coordinate federal resources and policies with the pre-existing efforts at the state and local levels in order to improve instruction for all students. This reform made three major changes to Title I. [18] It added math and reading/language arts standards to be used to assess student progress and provide accountability. [18] It reduced the threshold for schools to implement school-wide programs from 75% poverty to 50% and gave schools a longer reign to use federal funding from multiple programs to dispense funds at a school wide level. [18] Lastly, the IASA gave more local control overall so that federal officials and states could waive federal requirements that interfered with school improvements. [18]

The most recent and significant alteration to the original Title I was made by its reauthorization under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). [21] In this reauthorization, NCLB required increased accountability from its schools both from the teachers and from the students. [21] Yearly standardized tests were mandated in order to measure how schools were performing against the achievement bars set by Title I. [21] Schools were also responsible for publishing annual report cards that detailed their student achievement data and demographics. [21] Schools were now held accountable not only by punitive measures that would be taken if schools fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), but also corrective actions were taken if states did not have an assessment system approved by Title I. [21] Under NCLB, Schools are also required to plan for “restructuring” if they fail to make AYP for three years after being identified for improvement. [21] More schools took corrective action under NCLB than under IASA. [21] NCLB also required teachers to be highly qualified if hired using Title I funding. [21]

Modern applications of the Title I money have been diverse. Recent uses include wide-scale purchasing of iPads and other Internet using devices as electronic textbooks for students in 1:1 initiatives. Along with this, students from low-income families often do not have adequate Internet access from home. Thus, various public money, including Title I funds, are being investigated for possible use to provide cellular Internet access for students to receive remediation or other instructional content from home. The purpose of 24/7 internet access from home is to close the gap between higher income families where remediation resources are generally more available through parents and additional services and low-income students where such resources are scarce. Educational Technology advocates have long cited 24/7 Internet access as a boon to the education and advancement of at-risk children.

Funding

Under NCLB, Title I funding is given to schools where at least 35% of the children in the school attendance area come from low-income families or to schools where 35% of the student population is low-income. [22] To determine the percentage of low-income families, school districts may select a poverty measure from among the following data sources: (1) the number of children ages 5–17 in poverty counted in the most recent census; (2) the number of children eligible for free and reduced price lunches under the National School Lunch Program; (3) the number of children in families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; (4) the number of children eligible to receive Medicaid assistance; or (5) a composite of these data sources. The district must use the same measure to rank all its school attendance areas. The funds are appropriated for the use of improving academic achievement for students in low-income households. [22]

Title I funding is received by more than 50% of all public schools. [22] NCLB also requires that for funding to be received, all districts and schools must meet adequate yearly progress goals for their student populations and specific demographic subgroups. [22] Non-Title I schools are schools that do not receive federal Title I funds. [22] Although school districts have some freedom in how Title I funding is distributed among schools within a district, Title I requires them to prioritize the highest-poverty schools. [22]

There are four distribution formulas under NCLB for Title I funding: Basic Grant, Concentration Grant, Targeted Assistance Grant, and the Education Finance Incentive Grant. [23] The Federal Education Budget Project details the requirements for each formula extensively. [23] All of the grants mentioned above are designed to close the gap in education resources in underserved and funded communities [24]

Basic Grant

The Basic Grant formula provides funding to school districts based on the number of low income children they serve. [23] To receive money through this grant, the school district must meet the requirement of having at least 10 poor children and 2% of its students in poverty. [23]

Concentration Grant

The Concentration Grant formula is similar to the basic grant formula in the regard that funding is given to schools based on the number of low income children they serve. [23] In order to receive money through this grant, school districts must meet the requirement of having at least 15% of children in poverty or a total of 6,500 poor children. [23]

Targeted Assistance Grant

The Targeted Assistance Grant formula allocates more money for each child as the poverty rate in a district increases. [23] This means that school districts with more poverty get more money for each poor child than districts with low poverty. [23]

Education Finance Incentive Grant

The Education Finance Incentive Grant Formula is two-pronged approach. [23] Its main intention is to reward schools that expend more state resources on public education and distribute funding in an equitable manner. [23] It is also meant to concentrate funds in districts with high poverty that inequitably distribute state and local education funding. [23] In states, funding is allocated to school districts in a way similar to the Targeted Assistance Grant formula but the weight of schools in districts with high poverty that inequitably distribute funding is doubled. [23]

Since 2001, Federal Title I funding has increased by 88%. In dollars, this has been a $7.7 billion increase. [23] These funds were distributed through the Targeted Assistance and Education Finance Incentive Grant formulas, which target funds to disadvantaged students most directly. [23]

Title II

Title II funds are used in two ways: to train, prepare and recruit high quality teachers and principals, and to enhance teacher quality through ongoing professional development. [25]

Title III

Title III of ESEA originally provided matching grants for supplementary education centers (Political Education, Cross 2004).

Title III was the innovations component of ESEA. It was, for its time, the greatest federal investment in education innovation ever. [26] Its best innovations, after validation, became part of the National Diffusion Network.

Title V

This section of the original ESEA provided for strengthening state departments of education (Political Education, Cross 2004). The original Title V was amended to state the purposes of education reform efforts between local and state educational systems. Title V states that the government should endorse and support local education reforms that parallel reforms occurring at the state level. Parts of this section also state that the government should support innovative programs that help to improve an educational system. This includes support programs for libraries, scientific research leading to state and local educational agencies to put promising reforms into place, as well as for programs to improve teacher performance. [13]

Title V also provides government grants given to educational institutions appropriating money to gifted programs for students, foreign language developers, as well as physical education, the arts, and overall mental health care of children and students. [13]

Title VI

This section of the original ESEA had a number of general provisions, such Section 601, which defined various terms used throughout the ESEA.

Section 604 of the original ESEA prohibited the federal government from using the ESEA as the basis for a national curriculum. It provided that nothing in the act shall be construed as giving the federal government control over the curriculum, program of administration, personnel, or administration of any educational institution or school system. A similar section is still in effect today. [27]

Title VII

Added during the 1967 reauthorization of ESEA, Title VII introduced a program for bilingual education. It was championed by Texas Democrat Ralph Yarborough (Political Education, Cross 2004). It was originally created to aid Spanish-speaking students. However, in 1968 it transformed to the all-encompassing Bilingual Education Act (BEA). In its original form, the BEA was not explicit in mandating that all school districts provide bilingual education services—it left much room for interpretation by districts. The ruling in Lau v. Nichols provided some clarity—specific program goals were established, support centers for bilingual education were created, and what a “bilingual education program” should look like was defined. The courts upheld the language of the BEA as it declared a “bilingual education program” as one providing English instruction in unison with the native language. The idea was to push students to high academic achievement via a program encouraging them to learn English while maintaining the native language. [28] "It proposed to cultivate in this child his ancestral pride, to reinforce (not destroy) the language he natively speaks, to cultivate his inherent strengths, to give him the sense of personal identification so essential to social maturation," summarizes Professor Cordasco of Montclair State College. [29]

In addition to programs for bilingual students, Title VII implemented plans to help Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan natives be provided opportunities for achieving academic equality. [13] In late 1967, Congress gave $7.5 million to school districts, scholars, and private research groups who proposed the best programs for improving bilingual education. [30] This section of the ESEA promotes the federal government working closely with local educational institutions to ensure that Indian, Hawaiian, and Alaskan students are being aided in getting the same educational experiences as all other students. [13] This is achieved through programs that keep cultural values intact and push students to strive for academic excellence.

It is worth noting that Title VII was replaced in a reauthorization of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, becoming Title III “Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Students.” The most recent reauthorization of the ESEA was through the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, which renamed Title III to “Language Instruction for English Learners and Immigrant Students.”

Effects on bilingual education

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education which allowed for the Bilingual Education campaign to expand bilingual education programs. [31] In addition to Carter's efforts, President Clinton also showed his support through the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. The act dramatically increased funding for bilingual and immigrant education. [32] In 1998, the Linguistic Society of America showed its support for the BEA arguing that bilingual education was a basic human right; it believed that children should be educated in order to maintain their native language and cultural identity while acquiring the English language. [33]

In 2001 Texas authorized and encouraged school districts to adopt dual language immersion programs for elementary-aged students. It stipulated that instruction in each language should be split 50–50 in class. [34] More recently The Civil Rights Project, a research center founded at Harvard University and located at UCLA since 2007 is calling on policymakers to develop a new vision for bilingual education. Gándara and Hopkins gather compelling evidence that shows English-only policies in the states that adopted these restrictions aren’t working [35] The project proposes a new attitude that embraces bilingualism: “It is time that the U.S. join the rest of the developed world in viewing bilingualism as an asset, not a deficit,” argues Gary Orfield, co-director of the project. [36]

The Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2019 extended funding for the Native American Languages Grant Program (established under the Native American Programs Act of 1974) through 2024. [37]

The biggest obstacle to the BEA and expansion of bilingual education programs is the English-only Movement. There is no official language in the U.S., although some states have declared English as their official language. Three states in particular, California, Arizona, and Massachusetts, have declared English as their official language. In 1998, California passed Proposition 227 with the help of sponsor, Ron Unz, essentially ending bilingual education programs in exchange for an English immersion model which values assimilation over multiculturalism. In 2000, Arizona passed the English for Children initiative backed, again, by Ron Unz which mirrored California's Proposition 227 in replacing bilingual education programs with English immersion ones.

Many Americans question whether bilingual education programs or English immersion models are the best route to helping students acquire English. The question of whether public education should encourage the development of the native tongue or completely leave that up to the parent is a difficult one. Some point out that California's Proposition 227 is failing the students for simply failing to address both the linguistic and cultural struggles that students face; in 2004, the test results for California public school students showed the achievement gap for English learners widening and the test scores of English learners to be declining across grade levels. [38] Scholar Stephen Krashen maintains that these three states who have taken the harshest anti-bilingual education policies have seen progress that is modest, at best. [39] In a report to the United States Government, an Arizona study shows that English language learners can take up to 13 years to attain fluency—most school programs only offer 3 years of participation in English-immersion or bilingual programs, putting the effectiveness of these programs into question. [40] In order to ease the worries and qualms that people had in the programs' effectiveness, the Obama Administration had proposed the implementation of an evaluation system states would be required to use in order to judge the progress seen in English language learners in schools. This would potentially restore faith in the bilingual programs and hold schools more accountable to student achievement and progress. The question remains if states are properly equipped across the board to meet such high expectations. [41]

Landmark court cases

Notable reauthorizations

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Department of Education</span> U.S. federal government department

The United States Department of Education is a cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services by the Department of Education Organization Act, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">No Child Left Behind Act</span> 2002 United States education reform law; repealed 2015

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Improving America's Schools Act of 1994</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bilingual Education Act</span> Language education law of the United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literacy in the United States</span>

The most recent comprehensive data on adult literacy in the United States come from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) study conducted in stages from 2012 to 2017 by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). English literacy test results from 2014 suggest that 21% of U.S. adults ages 16 to 65 score at or below PIAAC literacy level 1, meaning they have difficulty "[completing] tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences." Included in that 21% is the 4.2% of respondents who were unable to be assessed due to language barriers, cognitive disability, or physical disability. A 2020 study by the Gallup analysis company funded by the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy estimated that getting all U.S. adults to at least PIAAC literacy level 3 proficiency would raise American's incomes by $2.2 trillion.

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative is the only federal funding source dedicated exclusively to afterschool programs. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) reauthorized 21st CCLC in 2002, transferring the administration of the grants from the U.S. Department of Education to the state education agencies. Each state receives funds based on its share of Title I funding for low-income students. Funds are also allotted to outlying areas and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.The No Child Left Behind Act narrowed the focus of 21st CCLC from a community learning center model, where all members of the community benefited from access to school resources such as teachers, computer labs, gymnasiums and classrooms, to an afterschool program model that provides services only to students attending high-poverty, low-performing schools. The services they provide include Academic enrichment activities that can help students meet state and local achievement standards. They also provide additional services designed to reinforce and complement the regular academic program, such as: drug and violence prevention programs, counseling programs, art, music, and recreation programs, technology education programs, and character education programs. Programs also may provide literacy and related educational development services to the families of children who are served in the program.

School Improvement Grants (SIGs) are grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to state education agencies (SEAs) under Section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The SEAs, in turn, award subgrants to local educational agencies for the purpose of supporting focused school improvement efforts. In 2009, the Obama administration, and specifically U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, challenged the education community to make the lowest-achieving schools its highest priority.

Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs (SASA) is a division of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that administers programs of financial assistance to State and local education agencies (LEA) and to colleges and universities. Under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, SASA administers several Title I programs of supplementary instruction and other services. This includes programs such as the Improving Basic Programs Operated by LEAs and the Prevention and Intervention Programs for Children Who are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk. Under Title III of the ESEA, SASA administers the State Formula Grant Program for English Language Acquisition and Language Enhancement. SASA also administers the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program authorized by the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Native American Languages Act of 1990</span> Civil rights law of the United States

The Native American Languages Act of 1990 (NALA) is a US statute that gives historical importance as repudiating past policies of eradicating indigenous languages of the Americas by declaring as policy that Native Americans were entitled to use their own languages. The fundamental basis of the policy's declaration was that the United States "declares to preserve, protect and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use practice and develop Native American Languages".

The Turnaround Model is one of four strategies available to American local education agencies (LEAs) under the Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants programs of the Obama administration. The other three programs include Restart, Transformation, and School Closures.

The highly qualified teacher provision is one of the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. The term highly qualified teachers (HQT) comes from the original language of Title II of the No Child Left Behind Act. Title II of NCLB designates federal funds to educational agencies for the purpose of improving the student achievement through the professional development of highly qualified teachers and principals. To qualify for this funding, states must comply with a series of conditions stipulated in NCLB, and track their progress toward goals each state sets. Title II was originally known as the Eisenhower Professional Development Program, and has undergone several reauthorizations, though the original intent has remained relatively intact. The main goals of the highly qualified teacher provision is to ensure that every classroom is staffed by a teacher deemed "highly qualified" under conditions set by NCLB. As some point out, this section of NCLB is quite at odds with the general thrust of NCLB because it focuses on school inputs rather than student outcomes. The sections of NCLB designated to HQTs allocates the majority of the funds to the states and does not clearly define at the federal level what is and what is not a highly qualified teacher, allowing for more local definitions of this term. This provision has come under much scrutiny, as it is up to states to decide how to measure highly qualified, and states are not holding their teachers to the same level of rigor across the country. Since its reauthorization in 2001, Title II has yet to reach its stated goal of ensuring that 100% of teachers in public schools in the United States are highly qualified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Every Student Succeeds Act</span> 2015 United States education reform law

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a US law passed in December 2015 that governs the United States K–12 public education policy. The law replaced its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and modified but did not eliminate provisions relating to the periodic standardized tests given to students.

The 1981 Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), significantly deregulating education in the United States and shifting a number of responsibilities back to the state level. As part of the Reagan administration’s Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, this act curtailed federal intervention and funding for domestic social causes while expanding the role of state and local government in administering education. This deregulation is symbolized by the reduced size of Title I, which was reduced from 75 pages to just 14.

The federal government of the United States has limited authority to act on education, and education policy serves to support the education systems of state and local governments through funding and regulation of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. The Department of Education serves as the primary government organization responsible for enacting federal education policy in the United States.

References

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Works cited

Further reading