Here we are, at the start of 2016, and the landscape is suddenly significantly different for those looking to improve public education. On December 10^th, 2015, President Obama signed into law Every Student Succeeds, which will replace No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The new federal education bill continues to require that schools be held accountable for student outcomes, but it gives control back to states over setting expectations and policing
outcomes. In that way, it marks a significant shift from the NCLB decade, in which efforts to reform American public schools were federally motivated and funded. But all we know so far is that the new federal bill will grant greater flexibility to states. What we don’t know yet is whether, given that flexibility, Connecticut will remember what it learned under NCLB: namely, that not every student succeeds in our state; indeed, that until things change significantly in our schools, many Connecticut children will be left behind. Under Every Student Succeeds, it is now our responsibility to hold our state accountable for properly educating all students, regardless of race or socio-economic status.

In the past, opponents of efforts to reform public schools had responded to NCLB by asserting that there was no need for reform. “Some students (*read minority and poor students*) simply don’t achieve at high academic levels,” they said. “NCLB is to blame,” they said. “It labels some schools and districts as failures, which sets them up to disappoint.” Although parts of NCLB were certainly flawed, the extreme rhetoric of the opposition to reform has always amazed me.

True, some of the top-down mandates that were incorporated into NCLB created unintended incentives and sometimes bad consequences. The law was imperfect. But NCLB also played a critical role in our national dialogue about public education because it forced us to acknowledge that many schools and districts had been under-serving large swaths of their student populations for a long time. Before NCLB, hidden in the reported averages was the fact that almost everybody who wasn’t well-off, White, or Asian was underperforming in school. It’s only because of NCLB that we’ve been forced to acknowledge an ugly truth: our public schools aren’t providing everyone with a fair and equitable education. Minority students—be they students from low-income families, who are Black or Hispanic, who have special needs, or who are just learning English—are not being educated to the same levels as majority students.

Now, that Congress has ushered in a new era in which a great deal of control over education will be returned to the states, the question is whether states will use that flexibility to address the new awareness that we gained under NCLB, or whether they will go back to hiding unattractive facts. Knowing what they do now about all of the students who had been overlooked for so long—will states undertake the challenge of doing the right thing for their kids? Will the opponents of NCLB also become the opponents of state-led accountability systems? Will they pressure state governments to ignore the ugly fact of these underserved student demographics? I hope not.

In Connecticut, let’s use the new flexibility to our advantage, and build the types of accountability systems that make the most sense for our state and our children. That means measuring the impact of schools by carefully monitoring multiple metrics (graduation rates, retention rates, discipline,
attendance, GPAs, and—yes—standardized assessments). It means taking stock of the nuances within our districts, listening to honest feedback from educators, and responding promptly when policies promote unintended consequences—as they sometimes will. But it all has to start with a consensus that every student can attain high-levels of academic achievement. We must commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to give all children a chance to excel. And we must value children’s needs above the needs of adults.

Every child in our state has the capacity to learn. Every child deserves a real shot at excellence, without us making excuses based upon his or her background. But we can’t give kids what they deserve until all stakeholders get on the same page about believing in them. For the sake of our students today, I hope we get there fast.