page_title: Every Student Succeeds Act
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Every Student Succeeds Act / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: "President Barack Obama signs S. 1177, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), during a bill a signing ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building South Court Auditorium, Dec. 10, 2015"
context_page_description: The Every Student Succeeds Act 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, and modified but did not eliminate provisions relating to the periodic standardized tests given to students. Like the No Child Left Behind Act, ESSA is a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which established the federal government's expanded role in public education.
  The Every Student Succeeds Act passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support.
context_section_description: The bill is the first to narrow the United States federal government's role in elementary and secondary education since the 1980s. The ESSA retains the hallmark annual standardized testing requirements of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act but shifts the law's federal accountability provisions to states. Under the law, students will continue to take annual tests between the third and eighth grades.
  ESSA leaves significantly more control to the states and districts in determining the standards students are held to. States are required to submit their goals and standards and how they plan to achieve them to the US Department of Education, which must then submit additional feedback, and eventually approve. In doing so, the DOE still holds states accountable by ensuring they are implementing complete and ambitious, yet feasible goals. Students will then be tested each year from third through eighth grade and then once again their junior year of high school. These standardized tests will determine each student's capabilities in the classroom, and the success of the state in implementing its plans. The states are also left to determine the consequences low-performing schools might face and how they will be supported in the following years. The USDOE defines low-performing schools as those in the bottom ten percent of the state, based on the number of students who successfully graduate or the number of students who test proficient in reading or language arts and mathematics. 
  All states must have a multiple-measure accountability system, which include the following four indicators: achievement and/or growth on annual reading/language arts and math assessments; English language proficiency, an elementary and middle school academic measure of student growth; and high school graduation rates. All states also had to include at least one additional indicator of school quality or student success, commonly called the fifth indicator. Most states use chronic absenteeism as their fifth indicator.
  Another primary goal of the ESSA is preparing all students, regardless of race, income, disability, ethnicity, or proficiency in English, for a successful college experience and fulfilling career. Therefore, ESSA also requires schools to offer college and career counseling and advanced placement courses to all students.
caption: President Barack Obama signs the Act into law, December 2015
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