On December 10, 2015 President Obama signed the "Every Student Succeeds Act," Public Law 114-95, which will take effect in the fall of 2016 and which replaces No Child Left Behind (NCLB)--the name for the nation's suite of K-12 education laws in effect from 2001 to 2016. There are many similarities between NCLB and ESSA. For example, ESSA continues to require annual testing and reporting on the achievement of sub-groups of students that was first required under NCLB. However, ESSA is different from NCLB in significant ways. ESSA attempts to address rural education in multiple ways. In fact, the word "rural" is included in the ESSA legislation 54 times. While much remains to be determined about the translation of ESSA into practice, as written, ESSA explicitly addresses of the special needs of rural schools in grant programs and other requirements. This first column on federal policy and rural education summarizes the ways that ESSA addresses rural education.