Discussion
My main research question - How does the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at the state/district levels impact arts programming at Brooklyn High School? - asks what the ESSA policy is, how it was developed and how it is implemented at the different levels. The key word is implementation, which is about what actions are taken and how the policy is acted upon by the different levels. Each level has a responsibility of closing student achievement gaps and their responsibilities vary based on which level they occupy and oversee. Each level is held accountable and responsible for student achievement by ensuring their decisions and plans align with goals. This question also asks how the implementation of these policies aligned with the ESSA have an impact on arts programs and what those specific impacts may be to the quality of the arts program. The insights I have from the analysis of literature and data is:
Federal educational policy acts as guidance to State, Districts and Schools
A data driven culture has been created by how policy is implemented at each level
There needs to be a purposeful integration of the arts into educational policy
I will break down each of these insights, explaining what these insights mean, how they are connected to the literature, why this matters and what implications can be drawn from them.
Policy as guidance to States, Districts and Schools
Federal Educational Policy in this current iteration acts as guidance rather than a dictation based on the language of the policy. This guidance helps different levels of leadership coordinate efforts and resources into aligning with and meeting policy goals. The ESSA wanted to adjust the role of the federal government in educational policy with relation to how it oversaw the expectations for states. The previous policy, NCLB, was a one size fits all dictation where schools had to meet a specific standard, narrowed down to a specific set of assessments yearly - without considering the various needs of schools across the country. As noted from Education Week (2015), the language of the policy that allows for flexibility meant that interpretation of the policy was left up to state and local leadership, while still maintaining an accountability structure based on standardized testing outcomes. With the reauthorization, the ESSA instead flipped the responsibility to states to identify their specific areas of need by aligning their state specific plans to the federal guidance. In this way, states created their own guidance and goals for districts and schools. From there, districts and schools became responsible for meeting their goals based on their specific needs. This readjustment is important to note because more responsibility and choice is given to schools on what they need to do in order to meet overall policy goals. The goals developed are aligned to the policy but are specific to the individual schools and districts. This kind of goal making allows for greater differentiation and flexibility to schools to help close their student achievement gaps because they are focused on their specific students. The policy also makes a point to identify student subgroups so that schools and districts are aware of the students that they must place particular focus on and so resources are allocated equitably to these students. Ultimately this means that schools - specifically administrators - have greater deciding power on how resources are allocated and used in their schools. The flexible nature of the policy allows for schools and districts to assess their own specific needs and implement supports to meet these needs - which holds them accountable to meeting their own goals. This new flexibility of needs assessment for individual schools will be key to understanding why arts programs are so inconsistent from school to school. However, as noted by Beveridge (2010), the issue with an open interpretation of policy means that resource distribution in at-risk schools is affected by only being able to focus on policy assessments rather than providing the diverse educational experiences that may not be outlined in policy. These students would lose out on the well rounded education that is noted in the policy that all students should have access to. What happens here is that schools with adequate resources do not have to pick and choose what educational experiences their students have - while underfunded schools must make the cuts to what policy has decided is not “valuable” to student achievement.
A Data Driven Culture
Before the Reauthorization of ESSA, NCLB created an audit culture within schools creating the high stakes testing environment that we are familiar with. This high stakes testing culture, as noted by Howard & Navarro (2016) and Kraehe, Acuff & Travis (2016), did little to improve student achievement. Schools were further punished for failing to meet standards and requiring these schools to use their own funds to make up the achievement gaps. With the adjustments from NCLB to ESSA, a shift of culture emerged within education. This “data driven” culture created by policy focuses on student academic achievement in core subjects such as ELA, Math, Social Studies and Science and collects data from these assessment outcomes. Data from these achievement measures are used to make the majority of decisions at School, District and State levels. As noted in the data analysis previously, most school based decisions are based on this data collection - teacher and instructional practice, professional development, resource allocation - just to name a few. At the State and District levels, data is used to identify and classify schools based on needs assessments and what kinds of improvement is necessary for those schools. By identifying through the data collected, states and districts can align their resources to target those specific schools and aid in improving student outcomes. Understanding how data plays a role in the decisions made by schools, districts and states, creates an understanding of how resources are allocated and the reasons why resources go into specific areas. The problem that begins to emerge is that this data is collected from very specific areas - annual assessments on core academic subjects - which does not seem too different from the previous NCLB assessment standards. For subjects outside of these areas, where the data does not reflect the achievement in non tested/non academic areas; how can these subjects be properly attended to when policy only accounts for academic areas? The policy notes that it wants to create opportunities for students to have a well rounded education including non academic subjects such as the arts but provides little incentive for schools to purposefully plan and organize these subject areas. When the data that decides how resources are allocated but does not account for the subjects not included, how can there be any accountability for schools to ensure the quality of these programs? Perhaps there needs to be more within policy and planning for this to be resolved.
Purposeful integration of the arts into policy
There is little specific language around arts program quality built into policy or planning. As noted in the data analysis, a policy goal of a well rounded education is the inclusion of the arts - which was shoehorned along with extracurriculars and other areas not included in the academic subjects. This means that the arts are not specifically addressed or required to be in any school or district level planning. Without specific language on arts program needs, schools are not required to have or held accountable for the quality of arts programming in their school - leading to the inconsistencies of programs from school to school. The quality of the program depends on what the school administrators decide to allocate their time and resources to. Policy only requires that it is available to students of all grade levels but does not outline any requirements specific to program needs. The data analysis shows that there are recommendations from the arts division of the NYCDOE that administrators can adopt. However there is no requirement for the administrators to read, use or adopt recommendations into their school plans. As noted by Stokes-Casey & Elliot (2019), without this specific language in policy the impact this has on the arts is how administrators choose to allocate resources and creates a marginalization of arts teachers whose programs have been labelled less valuable because of policy focus. By including the arts in policy by adopting purposeful planning, this allows for administrators to allocate at minimum the basic needs of their arts programs like a dedicated space, adequate materials and qualified teaching staff at all grade levels. Currently policy structures have developed systems of accountability to hold leadership at various levels responsible for the quality of education for all our students. Kraehe, Acuff & Travis (2016) note that practicing equity in arts education could provide a way to measure whether or not policies are doing enough to promote access and equity for all students. The absence or lack of access to a high quality arts programming and instruction can demonstrate the consequence of discriminatory policy to specific student subgroups. By integrating the importance and necessities of a high quality arts program, in collaboration with arts educators, we can begin to have a more equitable and consistent access to arts education for all students - especially those who would benefit the greatest from arts learning, but tend to have the least access to the arts in their public education.