by Andrew Ujifusa | Jul 30, 2017 | Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Illinois, K12 Education, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, National, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, No Child Left Behind, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont
Will parents be able to understand their child’s school’s performance under the Every Student Succeeds Act? And will schools with students from difficult socioeconomic backgrounds get a fair shake?
Those are two key questions that folks at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute set out to find answers for in a new report. In an analysis of the 17 plans turned in so far, Fordham President Michael Petrilli and Editorial Director Brandon Wright based their answers on three main questions:
- How clear are school ratings are to parents, educators, and the general public?
- Do the plans push schools to focus on all students, not just those furthest behind? and
- Are schools are treated fairly, particularly those with a large share of students in poverty, and judged in part by academic growth, not just achievement?
Fordham is often identified with right-leaning education policy positions, such as support for school choice. On ESSA, the think tank has also…
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by Alyson Klein | Jul 29, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Connecticut, Delaware, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, Louisiana, National, Tennessee
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ team have told states that they need to make bunch of changes in their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. But in some cases, states have said thanks-but-no-thanks to the department’s advice, turning in revised plans that may or may not be kosher under the new law.
That could put DeVos and company in a tough political and legal spot. Do they approve plans that they think don’t actually pass muster? Or do they hold the line, reject the plans, and risk the wrath of states, policy wonks, and conservative lawmakers who already think they’ve gone too far with the federal finger-wagging?
Case in point: The U.S. Department of Education, which has given official feedback to nine of the 17 state plans that have been turned in, dinged Tennessee for using super-subgroups, which combine different historically overlooked groups of students (think English-language learners and students in special education) for accountability purposes…
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by Alyson Klein | Jul 29, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Connecticut, Delaware, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, Louisiana, Massachusetts, National, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee
UPDATED
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team have gotten big blowback for their responses to states on their plans for implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act. State officials and even some of DeVos’ GOP allies in Congress have said the department is being nit-picky, inconsistent, and going beyond the bounds of ESSA, which sought to rein in the federal policy footprint.
So now the agency is changing the process, Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the department confirmed. Instead of just sending letters to states on their plans, the department will first have two-hour phone conversations with states and go over any the issues that peer reviewers had…
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by NNPA ESSA | Jul 26, 2017 | Delaware, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education
Education stakeholders remain “concerned” about the state’s submitted ESSA plan. Atnre Alleyne, executive director of the Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now, shared his fear that the states plan is “just an exercise in compliance,” and questioned if the state was “really serious about getting to a place where we’re closing the achievement gap.”
Full story here >>
by Alyson Klein | Jul 18, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Connecticut, Delaware, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Michigan, Tennessee
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ home state education chief thinks her department is sending some conflicting signals when it comes to the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Brian J. Whiston, the state superintendent, said the message he’s heard from DeVos has been all about state leadership and leeway.
But he got a very different sound bite from Jason Botel, the acting assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education. Botel called the state earlier this month to talk about what the department sees as missing from its ESSA plan, in advance of an official feedback letter…
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by Alyson Klein | Jul 9, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Connecticut, Delaware, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Illinois, K12 Education, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont
There’s been a ton of confusion lately about whether and how states can incorporate science, social studies, and other subjects into their systems for rating schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The upshot is that, yes, states can indeed use science, social studies, the arts, and other subjects beyond reading and math for accountability. But there are some caveats when it comes to just how they do that. (More below.)
First, some background: U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos got pushback last month when her team told four of the 17 states that have submitted ESSA plans so far Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, and Tennessee that their vision for incorporating science into their accountability plans didn’t pass muster. Advocates for science teachers sent DeVos’ team an angry letter, saying they thought this was a poor policy choice...
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by Alyson Klein | Jul 1, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Connecticut, Delaware, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee
Connecticut, Louisiana, New Jersey, Oregon, and Tennessee got preliminary feedback Friday from the U.S. Department of Education on their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, which must be approved by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
The department’s initial ESSA feedback letters to Delaware, Nevada, and New Mexico sparked wonky outrage, including from state advocates who felt the department had overstepped its bounds. Some of the department’s comments, especially on academic goals and measuring college and career readiness, seemed like a sharp departure from DeVos’ rhetoric, which put a big emphasis on local control and rolling back the federal footprint on K-12.
So will this round of feedback give fans of local control another case of heartburn? From our quick review, that seems less likely. (But we’ve reached out to some state advocates for their take.) Noteably, though, the department isn’t questioning whether any state has set “ambitious” goals, as it did with Delaware’s plan. And it doesn’t seem to have a problem with the way Louisiana and Tennessee have relied on Advanced Placement and dual enrollment to determine school ratings, even though that too, was an issue for Delaware. Scroll down for more detail…
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by Alyson Klein | Jun 19, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Delaware, Education Week, K12 Education, National, Nevada, New Mexico
The Trump administration is under pressure to explain its extensive early feedback on state plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, and it appears to be responding.
Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement Friday that the feedback letters “raised some concerns” among his members. And Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., an ESSA architect and an ally of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, said last week he’d be taking a close look at the feedback.
The U.S. Department of Education responded to these concerns at the end of last week, publishing a list of Frequently Asked Questions that seeks to explain exactly what its letters to three states, the first feedback states have gotten from the Trump team on ESSA, actually meant when it comes to DeVos’ approach to the law. The document may not clear up every question states and others may have, however. More on that below…
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by NNPA ESSA | Jun 19, 2017 | Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, K12 Education, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, National, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, No Child Left Behind, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
By: Michelle Croft and Richard Lee
ACT Research and Policy
Despite (or because of) the federal requirement that all students in certain grades participate in statewide achievement testing, stories of parents opting their student out of the testing gained national attention in the media in the spring of 2015. Ultimately, twelve states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin—received a notice from the U.S. Department of Education that they needed to create a plan to reduce opt-outs due to low participation rates.
When statewide testing came in spring 2016, there were more stories of opt-outs, and information about districts failing to meet participation requirements will follow in the coming months.3 Early reports from New York indicate that 21% of students in grades 3–8 opted out in 2016, which was slightly more than the prior year. (See attached PDF below for reference information.)
Participation Rate Requirements
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (both the No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds authorizations) requires that all students annually participate in statewide achievement testing in mathematics and English in grades 3–8 and high school as well as science in certain grade spans. Ninety-five percent of students at the state, district, and school level must participate; otherwise there is a range of consequences.
Under the No Child Left Behind authorization, the school would automatically fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress if the school—or subgroups of students within the school—did not meet the participation rate requirement. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides states with greater flexibility to determine how to incorporate the participation rate into the state’s accountability system. However, in proposed regulations, the state will need to take certain actions such as lowering the school’s rating in the state’s accountability system or identifying the school for targeted support or improvement, if all students or one or more student subgroups do not meet the 95% participation rate.
Michelle Croft is a principal research associate in Public Affairs at ACT. Richard Lee is a senior analyst in Public Affairs at ACT.
Email research.policy@act.org for more information. © 2016 by ACT, Inc. All rights reserved. MS489
http://www.org/policy-advocacy
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