ESEA at 50

The author draws on his extensive experience helping lead Congress’s education efforts and later a highly respected education research concern to propose a new approach to federal education policy that expands and transforms the federal role. This new approach would significantly expand federal aid to schools that is not restricted to particular categories of students but that is contingent on states’ willingness to address the most fundamental issues that impede educational progress. This expanded general aid program could be called the United for Students Act (USA). A new approach is needed because progress has not been sufficient and because the world is changing at such a fast pace that we cannot procrastinate, the author says. If we want improvement, we must let go of resistance to change and sweep aside old excuses to adopting new and better ways.