New education law doesn’t go far enough: Your Say

The Every Student Succeeds Act, signed into law Thursday, replaces the No Child Left Behind Act. The law provides more flexibility to the states. Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

As a teacher for the past 18 years, I think No Child Left Behind (NCLB) definitely had drawbacks with its funding and one-size-fits-all testing approach. But it was a good program to put emphasis on gaps that needed to be addressed between various demographics.

My problem with the new program is the power given to the states, their legislatures and their departments of education. We live in a global age. Fifty opinions, guidelines and measurement tools will not improve our academic standing in the world. I’m not sure we have the people in charge to develop the best plans for our schools.

— Ely Moore

All school for my kids seems to be about now is testing. It leaves little time for other classes and experiences we all enjoyed that foster learning and development.

— Randall Cheuvront

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I don’t think the new Every Student Succeeds Act will actually fix NCLB’s problems. For one, the emphasis on testing is still there, but tests are not the most effective way to measure success. Testing only shows whether students who are good at taking them are memorizing facts, not whether real learning is taking place for all students. Learning is something harder to measure than that. The teachers with the students every day can gauge a child’s learning better than a standardized test, and with less stress on the teachers and the students.

Each child learns differently. Education reforms that don’t take that into account will ultimately fall short of their goals.

— Abbie Boyd

All anyone can do is ensure that every child has an opportunity to receive an education. What that child does with the opportunity cannot be ensured.

— Wayne Jones