Legislation, Regulations and Guidance

Legislation

President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act into law on December 10, 2015.

ESSA includes provisions that will help to ensure success for students and schools. Below are just a few. The law:

Advances equity by upholding critical protections for America’s disadvantaged and high-need students.
Requires—for the first time—that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in college and careers.
Ensures that vital information is provided to educators, families, students, and communities through annual statewide assessments that measure students’ progress toward those high standards.
Helps to support and grow local innovations—including evidence-based and place-based interventions developed by local leaders and educators—consistent with our Promise Neighborhoods
Sustains and expands this administration’s historic investments in increasing access to high-quality preschool.
Maintains an expectation that there will be accountability and action to effect positive change in our lowest-performing schools, where groups of students are not making progress, and where graduation rates are low over extended periods of time.
- Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), amended as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 2015: https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ95/PLAW-114publ95.pdf
- Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, Title VII, Part A, Subpart 1; 20 U.S.C. 7421-7429, 7491-7492