Washington, D.C. (March 17 2017) — OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates is extremely concerned about the removal of the Accountability Regulations under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The Every Student Succeeds Act is a bipartisan measure signed in 2015 that revises No Child Left Behind, which governs the nation’s education law and equal opportunity for students. On March 9, 2017, the Senate voted to repeal a portion of this act that offered federal funding to state and local school districts in exchange for plans that ensured equitable and safe education for historically marginalized groups, including English language learners and immigrant students.
The ESSA Accountability regulations would have enshrined critical policies that would have protected the education of millions of AAPI students. One regulation called for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities to have disaggregated data to detect achievement gaps compared to their white counterparts. This would have brought attention to the fact that Hmong, Lao, and Cambodian Americans have an average high school achievement rate of 63 percent compared to 95 percent of Taiwanese Americans and 85% of the total US population.
“OCA supports vigilant oversight of education policies that speak to the diverse and multi-faceted needs of the 2.6 million Asian American and Pacific Islander students currently enrolled in public school”, said Vicki Shu, OCA national vice president of public affairs. “We are disappointed in the removal of these regulations and the failure of the architects of ESSA to negotiate in good faith when the accountability regulation was initially agreed upon,” Shu said.
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates is a national organization of community advocates dedicated to improving the social, political, and economic well-being of Asian Pacific Americans (APAs).
