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4: GOVERNMENT

OVERREACH

he federal government took over public
Teducation with the No Child Left Behind Law
and the Common Core Curriculum. The No Child Left
Behind Act authorized several federal education
programs that were administered by the states. Under
the 2002 law, states were required to test students in
reading and math in grades three through eight and once
in high school and forced states to disaggregate data by
race. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaced
the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015. The ESSA
retains the hallmark annual standardized testing
requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, but
shifts the law’s federal accountability provisions to the
states. The states are also left to determine the
consequences low-performing schools.

Common Core is a set of learning standards that
began as the recommendations of a task force in 2009
and have been adopted by more than 40 states.
Common Core has influenced a whole generation to
value fairness over opportunity—rote memory over
cognitive thinking. President Trump has directed the

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