ESSA: Every Student Succeeds Act

The Every Student Succeeds Act was signed by President Obama in 2015. If allowed to go forward under the Trump administration, ESSA will give (school) librarians back some of their standing that has been lost over the years.  It provides federal funding for school libraries and makes the position part of the “specialized instructional support personnel” that NCLB did not. NCLB allowed funding and jobs to be cut when schools were looking to save money. ESSA would return (some) of that money and jobs.Many states that did not mandate school librarians lost them in the time of budget cutting (for example, Philadelphia, PA has 8 school librarians down from  about 200 in the 1990’s).Read more about it here-