How the Every Student Succeeds Act Affects Asian American Students

Last month, President Obama passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which
replaces the previous educational policy, The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Of particular relevance to the API community are the provisions for addressing the
different levels of language proficiency of English learners. Like the No Child Left
Behind Act, the ESSA allows English language learners the option to take
standardized tests in their native language, until they have reach an appropriate
level of proficiency in English. However, like the NCLBA, ESSA emphasizes
accountability over root causes of inequality. The problem here is that by passing
the responsibility of accountability from the federal government to the states, the
disaggregated data collected from the students of at-risk demographics may well be
wastefully collected. According to Truth-Out, the new law flies against history's
lesson that federal oversight is a good thing for vulnerable children.

This is because states are not required to collect data disaggregated for vulnerable
students. Furthermore, despite explicitly stated provisions in the ESSA for states to
collect student data disaggregated for Asian American Pacific Islander students, an
improvement in this respect from NCLB, the bill does not require disaggregated data
for subgroups within the greater Asian Pacific Islander group. This is important in
that South Asian American and Pacific Islander students have been shown to
consistently underperform and to be academically disadvantaged compared with
whites and East Asian American students. The data to be collected under the
provisions of ESSA would subsequently hide academic vulnerabilities specific to
South Asian American and Pacific Islander students.
For this reason, people such as Congressman Ted Lieu of Los Angeles and coalitions
such as the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights are disappointed by
the lack of appropriate AAPI data disaggregation provision.
I am disappointed the final bill did not include Asian American and Pacific Islander
(AAPI) data disaggregation provisions. This important information is vital for
ensuring that all AAPI students are not put into a single category contributing to
the model minority stereotype which risks allowing students to fall through the
cracks and glossing over the serious challenges many young people in the diverse
AAPI community face, Congressman Lieu stated in response to the passage of the
bill.
Other concerns with the new educational policy include the assessment system set
up for English Language Learners.

We refuse to be satisfied with water downed provisions that may bring attention to
issues our children face, particularly English Language Learners (ELL) but do not
substantively address and/or restricts ability to actually address. The Senate bill
only allowed for ELL to be exempt from the English language or reading assessment
system for 1 year. Under the Senate bill ELL were not exempt from math
assessment and in comparison to the House bill, the Senate bill made sure ELL were
counted and their performance was included in the state accountability system.
The House bill allowed ELL students to be exempt from English language
assessment for 2 years in math and 3 years in reading, the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee wrote in response to the passage of the ESSA bill.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34080-every-student-succeeds-act-still-leavesmost-vulnerable-kids-behind
http://www.edcentral.org/essadlls/
http://www.civilrights.org/advocacy/letters/2015/the-every-student-succeeds.html?
referrer=https://www.google.com/

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/17/25salomone_ep.h29.html?
r=955510885&preview=1
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/hr1/text
https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-lieu-statement-final-passage-everystudent-succeeds-act
http://www.adc.org/2015/12/adc-opposes-every-student-succeeds-act/

Bio:
Susan Chang is an undergraduate at Stanford University, currently on hiatus from college. A
physics major who also has interests in issues related to race and ethnicity, she is passionate
about activism in the Asian American community.