The coalition of 36 civil rights groups, including national disability rights groups, has responded to the latest draft ESEA with a list of four specific changes that they deem necessary to ensure equity. Via PoliticsK-12, the alterations are:
- States must be required to identify schools where all students or groups of students are not meeting goals and intervene in ways that raise achievement for students not meeting state standards.
- States must transparently report on student groups in order to understand how all students are doing and what their needs might be. (As written, the bill does not require schools to report disaggregated data in a way that can be cross-tabulated by gender and disability status across major racial and ethnic groups, though it does require states to report disaggregated data.)
- States must intervene to remedy disparities in access to resources between school districts, and the comparability loophole must be closed.
- The U.S. education secretary must have sufficient authority to ensure the law is appropriately implemented and that the most vulnerable students are protected.
