By Matt Weyer and Lee Posey

The U.S. Senate passed S. 1177, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as the Every Student Achieves Act on Thursday.

This legislation is the Senate bill to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, and it will be conferenced with the House version of reauthorization, the Student Success Act.

Senators made a number of amendments to the Every Child Achieves Act during floor consideration. Among the amendments was SA #2100, dealing with full-service community school grants.

Community schools provide extensive academic, social and health services for students, their families and community members to break down barriers faced by low-income families.

Similar to the community school effort are two-generation strategies, which aim to eliminate intergenerational poverty by addressing the needs of low-income parents and their children simultaneously by providing postsecondary education and workforce development for parents while ensuring access to high-quality early childhood education and childcare for children.

Substantial evidence has documented the positive benefits of engaging families in their children’s education including school readiness and improved achievement, social-emotional growth, increased motivation and reductions in behavioral problems. Strong family engagement also contributes to school improvement and helps communities coalesce and develop.

Check out the NCSL Engaging Families in Education policy brief

Click here for more information on the full-service community schools grant program.

With generous support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, NCSL’s Education Program has expanded to cover early learning and family engagement issues.

Matt Weyer covers early education issues for NCSL's Education program. Lee Posey is Senior Committee Director for the NCSL Education Committee in the Washington, D.C. office.

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