ERIC Number: ED597306
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Jul
Pages: 16
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
How Well Do State Legislatures Focus on Improving School Efforts to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching & Re-Engage Disconnected Students? Policy Report
Center for MH in Schools and Student/Learning Supports at UCLA
The federal "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA) has stimulated states to revisit school improvement. Previously, the Center analyzed ESSA and the related consolidated state plans using the lens of how the federal legislation and state plans address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students. Such analyses provide a critical look at school improvements meant to reduce the opportunity and achievement gaps. The current analysis of ESSA indicates the focus on student/learning supports continues to be ad hoc, piecemeal, and scattered. The analysis of state plans indicates poorly conceived approaches that continue the long-standing fragmentation and marginalization of efforts to improve how schools address barriers to learning and teaching. In general, the plans emphasize pursuing discrete problems with discrete interventions. In doing so, student and learning supports for addressing complex learning, behavior, and emotional concerns often are implemented redundantly, with counterproductive competition for sparse resources and poor outcomes. This tends to maintain the marginalization of student and learning supports with respect to the school improvement agenda. This policy report focused on state legislative education committees. These committees tend to play three roles: (1) providing input to guide the legislature's passage of the state budget; (2) shaping specific legislation; and (3) holding public hearings and roundtables. The picture that emerges from the 20 states sampled is that every education committee focuses on a variety of valid and pressing matters. Two appendices are included.
Descriptors: Elementary Secondary Education, Educational Legislation, Federal Legislation, Educational Improvement, Barriers, Learner Engagement, Achievement Gap, Educational Opportunities, Access to Education, Student Needs, Statewide Planning, State Legislation, Budgets, Hearings, Educational Finance, Transformative Learning
Center for MH in Schools and Student/Learning Supports at UCLA. Department of Psychology at UCLA. Web site: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Center for MH in Schools and Student/Learning Supports at UCLA
Identifiers - Location: California; New York; Washington; Tennessee; Louisiana; Colorado; Alabama; Arizona; Connecticut; Oregon
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: Every Student Succeeds Act 2015
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A