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It shouldn’t be schools vs. students, by Nate Davis | Executive Chairman | K12 Inc.
With the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), President Obama said, “With this bill, we reaffirm that fundamentally American ideal — that every child, regardless of race, income, background, the zip code where they live, deserves the chance to make of their lives what they will.”
It’s a student-centric message, but will this new law actually drive schools to focus on all students, or will it widen the gap between the well-educated and the less fortunate?
Many states today grade schools through A-F or 1-5 grading systems (or another similar scale). Others stack-rank schools from top to bottom. These ratings are based in large part on annual state tests.
But support for standardized testing is falling. Parents and educators express concern that these tests dont capture the myriad of other learning objectives, competencies and skills critical to a child’s education. Assigning grades to schools gives a parent no insight into the educational welfare of their child. A student may be in an “A” school, but still be behind academically. Similarly, a student in a “C” or “D” school could be excelling and her parents very happy with the quality of education she is receiving. This can lead to false characterizations of school quality and to students being overlooked or underserved.
Read the entire piece at The Hill
Nate Davis is executive chairman of K12 Inc., a technology-based education company and leading provider of online learning programs to schools across the U.S. Mr. Davis is available for interviews or appearances to discuss the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and other education policy issues. Contact pr@strategybe.com.
Contact: B|E Strategy | pr@strategybe.com | 301.526.2239
