BUFFALO, N.Y. — Signed by President Obama back in December 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act was meant to remedy some of the problems with No Child Left Behind. ESSA maintains things like annual assessments, accountability measures and systems support to low performing schools. How it differs from No Child Left Behind is it gives states the sole authority to design its plan.

“Our major concern is that, the way that this is rolled out, there’s no federal oversight, and the onus is on the state, the responsibility is on the state to make the regulations to enforce this. That’s a major concern,” said Bryon McIntyre, District Parent Coordinating Council.

That’s just one of the issues raised by the DPCC. President Sam Radford says the states draft plan takes power away from parents and lowers the bar on graduation rates.

“One of the things that we were able to do as the DPCC is use the previous law, No Child Left Behind Law, it required in that law that you had to have a parent signature and parent input in the development of the plan. When they didn’t do that in Buffalo, we were able to file something with the federal government that froze the money until they included parents in the process,” said Radford.

“As the law is drafted right now, schools are targeted for added ESSA resources if they have graduation rates below 67 percent. We know that is woefully low,” said Daveed Muhammed, DPCC.

Read the full article here: Includes video.

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