With reauthorization of ESEA from 1965 through 2007, American taxpayers had paid more than $778 billion in federal programs for elementary and secondary education. The fiscal year 2022 Budget alone, includes $102.8 billion in new discretionary spending for the Department of Education, a $29.8 billion, or 41 percent increase above the fiscal year 2021 appropriation. This spending has led to an extensive federal education bureaucracy that consumes federal funds and imposes administrative costs on state and local authorities.

Since its inception, ESEA has reshaped and influenced the schooling of millions of American children. The main goal of ESEA was to provide additional resources to help economically and educationally disadvantaged children learn better and ultimately lead more productive lives. . .. but has it?  There are four government funded “education” programs foisted on the nation’s school system: No Child Left Behind (2002), Race to the Top (2009), Common Core (2010), and Every Student Succeeds (2015) -- all claiming to close the gaps in education for every student.                                                                                 

According to the Department of Education, the Bush Administration's budget request of $24.4 billion in 2008 is a 41 percent increase over 2001 spending. This spending moved the emphasis from student learning to teaching students how to properly take a standardized test. Not only did this limit the student's learning, but it also lowered the bar to accommodate the proof of student achievement.

A 2006 study by the National Assessment of Educational (NAEP) report card on No Child Left Behind Act the “results in reading and math in 19 states (of the 29 with available and comparable data) reported their eight-grade students made progress on state reading exams. But only three of these states show any gains on NAEP and, even then, only as the ’basic’”- level. Also, eight-grade NAEP reading results were disappointing almost everywhere, and the national average fell by a point.”  

According to an article by Joe Onosko, “Race to the Top Leaves Children Behind and Future Citizens Behind, The Devastating Effects of Centralization, Standardization, and High Stakes Accountability”, he points out eight failures of President Obama’s Race to the Top (RTT) profoundly flawed educational reform plan in our nation’s schools.

The Plan:

• focuses on high-stakes testing and accountability to raise achievement in math and language arts has a track record of failure.

• creates a false savior in charter schools.

• creates hostile school environments, undermines teacher- student relations, and inflicts the greatest harm on students in greatest need—that is, minority students and students living in poverty.

• narrowly focuses the educational goals and energies of school personnel on two learning outcomes at enormous opportunity cost.

• demonizes teachers, reduces the status of the profession, and ensures that many of our most talented and motivated young people will not become educators.

• undermines the intellectual, social, aesthetic, and emotional engagement and development of students.

• threatens the entrepreneurial vitality and economic future of our country, despite, ironically, support from corporate America.

• threatens our democracy due to students’ reduced capacity for informed decision making.
   

Not every state or school district approached the education gap in the same way. In Union City, NJ, David Kirp documented the school district’s progress in an article, “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America’s Schools. It shows there's a sensible way to rebuild public education and close the achievement gap for all students.  

Although many states had their own education standards, 40 states had adopted the CCSS as official K-12 standards by the end of 2010. As a top-down education policy the assessment and accountability of 13,600 school districts, 98,000 schools and three million teachers, was impossible. Tracking these numbers by class size, demographics, and achievement levels often created class segregation by race and socioeconomic backgrounds which are strictly unconstitutional. Even though Common Core is not a federal policy it received support from the federal government during the Obama administration.  

In a 2020 article by Theodor Rebarber, “The Common Core Debacle Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources” he states the “results for several states reveal a broadly similar pattern. Large states, including California, Florida, New York, and Illinois, all performed better in the period before Common Core than afterward. Kentucky, an early implementer of Common Core starting in fall of 2011, compared to the fall in 2014 for most states, still sees the same broad pattern of gains before turning into declines afterward. Massachusetts, a top performer with fine curriculum standards, threw them out in favor of the untried Common Core and saw one of the largest downturns in math achievement, from relatively large gains before to almost equally large declines afterward.” The article goes on to say that Common Core turned federalism from state directives to a national “cartel” and dragged down scores for the entire nation.

Marketed to add more flexibility to No Child Left Behind and to soften the consequences for underperforming schools, waivers were allowed in certain states to avoid many of the mandates of the law in exchange for agreements to raise standards, improve accountability, and improve teacher effectiveness. 

Under the current funding level under Title 1 (block grants aimed at increasing education spending for low-income students) ESSA was funded at $18.39 billion for FY2023, an increase of $1 billion above FY2022. Under Title 2, ESSA focuses on improving the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders, and is funded at $2.19 billion for FY2023, an increase of $20 million above FY2022.

The primary change was an about face and shift the responsibility of implementation from the federal government to the states. Like all the other federally related top-down education programs, ESSA shortcomings include:

• Constant pressure from the top down.

• The amount of testing required was taken away from the overall curriculum for the grade level.

• The higher qualification requirements for teachers decreased the number of qualified teachers who were to be hired to focus on the underserved /minority students which reduced the time to teach the other students.

• Issues of student data collection which enabled the teachers to divide the students into subgroups by race, disability, and socioeconomic status. 

• Pressuring school district to meet the “adequate yearly progress” threshold, especially for the underserved. If a school did not, it could face heavy sanctions causing disruption for the students, the school itself being forced to allow students to transfer to better performing schools, or to offer free tutoring, and could ultimately face state intervention. 

• The chronic underfunding by the Federal Government if promised.

• The costs fall to the state/school districts to implement after limited federal funding.

• The continual downward spiral of student’s education achievements.