Conference Report on S. 1177, Student Success Act
Floor Speech
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Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). It has been 14 years since the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and we have desperately needed an update to this critical law. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act included unworkable provisions and led to the proliferation of high-stakes testing. In order to manage the impact of the law's strict provisions, the federal government has granted waivers to 40 states, resulting in unpredictability and unequal application of the law. The ESSA will correct our previous mistakes by maintaining high standards while giving states and local school districts greater flexibility in achieving them with evidence-based strategies.
At its core, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is a civil rights law that reflects our society's consensus that every state and school district must provide a quality education to all children. In order to fulfill this promise, we must have sufficient information to measure inequities in educational achievement for all groups, and we must ensure states and local governments are taking the steps necessary to close those achievement gaps. For that reason, I am very concerned that the ESSA lacks data disaggregation for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students. The AAPI community is extremely diverse with over 48 distinct ethnic groups that face varying challenges in educational achievement. The lack of data disaggregation will prevent us from determining what gaps exist and how best to address them.
Additionally, I am concerned by the lack of key provisions from the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Student Non-Discrimination Act. I have cosponsored these important pieces of legislation because more must be done to address the harmful effects of bullying and discrimination, particularly for LGBT students. No child should be denied a quality education due to his or her race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socioeconomic status. This bill takes important steps in the right direction, but the lack of AAPI data disaggregation and important LGBT protections shows there is much work to be done to achieve this goal. I look forward to working with my colleagues to address these flaws.
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