When school doors open later this month or right after Labor Day, the controversial No Child Left Behind Act will be on its way out, and the Every Student Succeeds Act will be on its way in, although full implementation will not begin until the 2018-19 school year.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. According to the U.S. Department of Education, this bipartisan measure reauthorizes the 50-yearold Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the nation's national education law and long-standing commitment to equal opportunity for all students. Of course, the old dress has some new wrinkles.Pennsylvania education officials have unveiled some of the key components of how it plans to implement the initiatives of ESSA. So far, the proposals are getting cautionary good grades from administrators, school board members, teachers unions and other educational stakeholders.The 14-year-old No Child Left Behind initiative was controversial from the start, and educators railed at its focus on testing and the complex reporting requirements. On top of that, the program failed miserably in its goal to achieve 100 percent proficiency by 2014. Testing doesn't go away completely, but there is less of it.Schools with grade levels that did not hit the annual No Child Left Behind targets were singled out and compelled to come up with improvement plans. There was the threat of a loss of federal funds for states and school districts if corrective action wasn't taken, but it never happened.Critics also said No Child Left Behind set unachievable goals and failed to consider other measures of progress in addition to testing. ESSA requires states to take a more critical look at total student achievement with less focus on testing. We're all for that.ESSA puts the onus on states rather than the federal government to come up with plans for implementation, all state plans must receive the blessing of the federal government. This troubles some civil rights advocates who fear that without strong federal government oversight, some schools might be tempted to overlook the needs of vulnerable students or take shortcuts for implementation.Advanced Project cited Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, which declared that the separate-but-equal principle upheld 58 years earlier in the Plessy v. Ferguson case was unconstitutional."Separate but equal," the court said, was legal, and blacks and whites could be segregated so long as equal accommodations were provided for both."History tells us that the federal government is a necessary party in ensuring equity in education," the organization said in a news release after passage of ESSA."Without federal intervention, segregated schools would have persisted."ESSA was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in late 2015. The act provides new flexibility for identifying fairer, more valid ways to measure school performance, determining how to best support schools identified as needing improvement, accelerating important reforms already underway, and moving state education policy away from strict focus on compliance and toward the establishment of rigorous expectations for all students.The state Department of Education has set up these proficiency goals: Cut in half the percentage of nonproficient students on the PSSA tests and Keystone exams by 2030, cut in half the percentage of students who fail to graduate and increase the number of students who are proficient in English.The state Education Department also said it has developed the Future Ready PA Index, a new school report card that measures academic growth, school climate, graduation rates and readiness for opportunities after high school. One part of this that we do not favor is not giving school districts a numerical or letter grade which would allow for more easy comparisons to neighboring districts.The Education Law Center says there is a critical need for greater accountability of schools serving educationally at-risk students, especially students who are homeless, in foster care and those involved in and re-entering from the juvenile justice system.The plan is available in English and Spanish on the state Department of Education website.The state continues to take comments from the public and concerned groups on the proposals until the end of this month. The state must submit the proposal to the federal government by Sept. 18.By Bruce Frassinelli |

tneditor@tnonline.com