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Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)According to the United States Department of Education, ESSA includes provisions that will help to ensure success for students and schools. Below are just a few, as listed on the department's website. 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
- Sustains and expands 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.
The ESSA legislation informs Pennsylvania's new methodology for measuring success in its schools and districts across the Commonwealth. It reflects a transition in education policy away from a strict focus on compliance and toward the establishment of rigorous expectations for students and collaboration and assistance for all schools to help them meet this standard. (PDE Every Student Succeeds Act Pennsylvania Consolidated Plan - January 12, 2018)
In the 2018-2019 school year, Pennsylvania's Department of Education will transition from the School Performance Profile (SPP) to the Future Ready PA Index as Pennsylvania’s one-stop location for comprehensive information about school success, and will use a dashboard model to highlight how schools are performing and making progress on multiple indicators.
