Re-centering civil rights in the reauthorization of ESEA: An equitable, ecological, evidence-based framework

Abstract

This article considers the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in light of current educational inequities and the impact of the pandemic. The reauthorization presents an opportunity to center equity and justice and revitalize the civil rights aspects of the law. The authors review recent studies about the myriad ways the COVID-19 pandemic affected students, teachers and school systems and situates the reauthorization within the broader political context, including federal aid to states and districts during the pandemic. The authors present overarching policy recommendations: (1) a restructuring of the law’s titles to focus on students, teachers, and systems (i.e. schools and districts); (2) a focus on the principles of racial equity, an ecosystem approach to serve students’ needs across policy silos (i.e., housing and health), and a focus on research evidence; (3) policy targets for students; (4) policy targets for educators, including professional renewal and retention; (5) policy targets for the education system as a whole, including a focus on fiscal equity and facilitating regional approaches to cross-sector collaborations. The article presents a coherent conceptual framework for a redesign of ESEA with an emphasis on equity, evidence use, and ecosystems that is argued would directly address the needs of students, teachers, and systems.

Re-orienting education toward ‘flourishing’ through education policy

“…Policy researchers Elizabeth DeBray and Janelle Scott and I, along with legal scholar Janel George, recently discussed the importance of focusing on both student and teacher well-being as policymakers tackle the long-overdue reauthorization of the ESEA (DeBray et al, 2022(DeBray et al, , 2023. We noted that Recognizing and addressing the mental health impacts of the pandemic and long-standing unattended issues of inequality that have been magnified by it, will be critical to helping students thrive because unaddressed mental health issues, alongside a failure to adopt policies and practices that can give students and teachers necessary supports, can compromise future well-being and education trajectories for students.…”

“…We noted that Recognizing and addressing the mental health impacts of the pandemic and long-standing unattended issues of inequality that have been magnified by it, will be critical to helping students thrive because unaddressed mental health issues, alongside a failure to adopt policies and practices that can give students and teachers necessary supports, can compromise future well-being and education trajectories for students. (DeBray et al, 2023) We suggested that components of the Every Students Succeed Act (ESSA), which is the latest version of ESEA, be more directly grounded in an 'equitable, evidence-based, ecosystem' framework which centers the health and the socioemotional well-being of students and educators and considers and addresses the consequences of systemic structural and environmental factors that interact with the experiences of these individuals and groups in their communities and schools. An important step is leveraging connections within the ESSA titles themselves, such that health and mental health may be incorporated at the local level.…”