With the US Department of Education now approving state ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) plans, attention turns to those plans’ contents. This includes how states intend to help kids assigned to persistently struggling schools — one of K-12 education’s perennial challenges. The need to do something different is pronounced because of the long history of unsuccessful “school turnaround” approaches and the failure of the Obama administration’s School Improvement Grant program.

But a recent study by Bellwether Education Partners and the Collaborative for Student Success found the first batch of state plans were “mostly vague and non-specific” in this area. Generally, the states did little to explain how they intend “to help increase student achievement, increase options for students, or intervene in chronically low-performing schools.” Why?

For years, some reformers have argued that powerful establishment-oriented interest groups prevented government leaders from acting boldly here. This weekend, a Washington Post article suggested it could be because states’ don’t know what to do.

There’s another explanation: Doing things differently in this domain necessarily upends longstanding arrangements—and the consequences can be legion and unwelcome.

In the new National Affairs, I argue today’s K-12 system is durable because, first, it’s based on principles many people hold dear; and, second, it’s terribly difficult to unwind century-old policies. So, for example, all families with students assigned to failing schools could be empowered with school choice. But that would diminish the authority of local school boards; require changes to policies on facilities, transportation, enrollment, and funding; potentially lead to school closures and job losses; undermine “neighborhood” schools; and more. In other words, load-bearing walls of the traditional model are compromised by this approach.

Read the source article at aei.org