Giving Compass' Take:

• Andrew R. Smarick argues that education reform pushes on, even when progress seems slow or nonexistent. 

• How can funders help to build up the next movement in education? What best practices should be retained as education shifts? 

• Learn how education reform is playing out across the U.S.

The Every Student Succeeds Act ended the Bush-Obama era of sweeping federal action embodied by the No Child Left Behind Act, Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grant program. It also severely limited the U.S. Department of Education’s ability to unilaterally exert its will on states and districts. Moreover, the Trump administration’s budget proposed significant cuts across federal programs. And all of this is on top of the public backlash to Common Core, teacher-evaluation reform, testing and similar initiatives associated with Uncle Sam.

Many find this all disheartening because they believe that major federal action is how the nation shows it cares deeply about something. It is, they’d argue, the way to broadcast priorities, bring about justice and take reforms to scale. Indeed, U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Brown vs. Board of Education and Pierce vs. Society of Sisters articulated and required the defense of essential education rights. So isn’t dramatic congressional action – the democratic equivalent of a powerful pronouncement of the federal courts – the primary way for the American people to drive widespread, meaningful educational change?

Read the full article about education reform by Andrew R. Smarick at U.S. News.