The most conspicuous manifestation of that bipartisan give-and-take is what’s being highlighted by news outlets and pundits across the country: Schools will still be held accountable for student performance, but states can determine the nuances of how that will take place. They’ll have to use “college-and-career ready” standards and intervene when those expectations aren’t met, but states will get to design their own standards and intervention protocol. They’ll still be required to administer annual testing in certain grades, ensure at least 95 percent of students participate, and disaggregate data based on students’ race, income, and disability status, but they can use other factors on top of testing to assess student performance, and the details of how the testing happens and how the scores are interpreted are up to states.

The overthrow of No Child Left Behind, which has been up for reauthorization for years, is certainly cause for excitement. The George W. Bush-era law required schools to administer annual tests in certain grades in an effort to identify and elevate the achievement of underperforming youth. It was also loathed for its one-size-fits-all approach to education reform, its promotion of teaching-to-the-test, and its harsh system of sanctions. Republicans grew to despise it for how much it allowed the Department of Education to micromanage states and school districts (especially when Obama rose into office). And given how little power the Every Student Succeeds Act gives to the federal government, it may feel, particularly among those on the right, as if the nation’s schools are about to experience a major makeover—as if the next era of public education will mark a major, much-anticipated divergence from the status quo.

But in reality, schools may not see much on-the-ground change. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia already have waivers from No Child Left Behind’s “most troublesome and restrictive requirements”—flexibility granted several years ago by the Obama administration in exchange for states’ commitment to “setting their own higher, more honest standards for student success.” This means that most of the country’s students have already been learning under a system that eschewed much of No Child Left Behind’s most obvious and onerous aspects—and looks a lot like the system envisioned in Every Student Succeeds. States with waivers were essentially allowed to set their own goals for raising achievement, come up with their own strategies for turning around struggling schools, and design their own methods of measuring student progress.

“I don’t think a parent is going to notice any difference when they take their child to school next year that their school is somehow operating under a new federal law,” said Tamara Hiler, the policy advisor for education at the think tank Third Way, in an email. “The only thing they are likely to notice is that their state or district may spend time reducing the number of tests they have been layering on over the past few years”—a problem that, contrary to belief, wasn’t really a federal one to begin with.