Blog

Your Education Road Map

Politics K-12®

ESSA. Congress. State chiefs. School spending. Elections. Education Week reporters keep watch on education policy and politics in the nation’s capital and in the states. Read more from this blog.

Federal

Betsy DeVos Releases ESSA Guide for Parents

By Alyson Klein — October 04, 2018 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Parents: Can’t make heads or tails of the Every Student Succeeds Act? The U.S. Department of Education has put together a cheat sheet for you.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos unveiled the “parents’ guide” at a roundtable in Mississippi, with parents, students, and educators, as part of her four-state “Rethink School” tour.

“Parents should not have to parse through a 500-page legal document to understand how a law or policy affects their children’s education.” DeVos said in a statement. “Because states and districts have significant flexibility in how they meet the requirements of the law, parents should know and have a voice in how they use that flexibility to best help their children. These new resources will help empower those closest to students with information they need to be informed advocates as education decisions are made at the state and local level.”

Parents will have a limited opportunity to influence ESSA plans, given that they have all already been approved by DeVos and her team. But parents may be able to help determine how their local districts implement the law, including when it comes to improving low-performing schools.

Want to learn more about the Every Student Succeeds Act? Here’s some useful information:

Related Tags: