Dive Brief:
- California education administrators are taking stock of how to regulate school performance during the rollout of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the Los Angeles Times reports.
- However, some school board members expressed concern that without the input from the federal government, the state may not be as tenacious about pushing ahead on the fight to close the achievement gap between races that persist in California schools.
- A draft for California’s response was seen as thin on details, though this could be because federal education funding is typically proportionally small. However, critics argue that federal education funding is more necessary in the state’s neediest schools.
Dive Insight:
ESSA will mandate that all school districts receiving Title I funding must report on spending expenditures in their schools. This new regulation could help to highlight resource gaps by illustrating which school districts are comparatively underfunded, and if there are certain schools in well-funded districts without needed resources. While there is an undeniable correlation between low-income communities and communities of color and underfunded schools, officials are understandably uncertain about what oversight and accountability at the federal level will come to mean over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is early into her tenure, but some aspects of her background suggest she is wary of providing accountability. In Michigan, she used her clout as a supporter of Republican causes and elected officials to doom a bill that would have offered more oversight of charter schools in the Detroit area. If DeVos is opposed to charter school oversight from legislators, would she also be hesitant to enact tough oversight on how public schools are helping to close any performance gaps? It is possible that she may approach the problem by doing what she can to further promote alternative options and charter school accessibility rather than lean on state education officials to correct the ills of a public school system she seems wary to support.
