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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by NNPA ESSA | Jun 18, 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, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Emily Parker, Bruce Atchison and Emily Workman
Education Commission of the States
This report highlights significant investments made by both Republican and Democratic policymakers in state-funded pre-k programs for the fourth year in a row. In the 2015-16 budget year, 32 states and the District of Columbia raised funding levels of pre-k programs. This increased support for preschool funding came from both sides of the aisle–22 states with Republican governors and 10 states with Democratic governors, plus the District of Columbia.
In contrast, only five states with Republican governors and three states with Democratic governors decreased their pre-k funding.
Overall, state funding of pre-k programs across the 50 states and the District of Columbia increased by nearly $755 million, or 12 percent over 2014-15. While this progress is promising, there is still work to be done to set children on the path to academic success early in life. Still, less than half of preschool-aged students have access to pre-k programs.
Increasing the number of students in high-quality preschool programs is broadly viewed as a way to set young learners on a path to a secure economic future and stable workforce. This report includes several state examples and an overview of the pre-k programs they have in place. Data tables on total state pre-K funding and state pre-kindergarten funding by program are appended. [Megan Carolan contributed to this publication.]
Download (PDF, 1.13MB)
Education Commission of the States. ECS Distribution Center, 700 Broadway Suite 1200, Denver, CO 80203-3460. Tel: 303-299-3692; Fax: 303-296-8332; e-mail: ecs@ecs.org; Web site: http://www.ecs.org
by Alyson Klein | Jun 17, 2017 | Betsy DeVos, Delaware, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, Nevada, New Mexico
This week, three states: Delaware, Nevada, and New Mexico, received official feedback from the U.S. Department of Education on their plans for implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act. And, the feds went a lot further than many guessed they would, given U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ rhetoric about local control, and the Trump administration’s own decision to ask states only for bare-bones information about their plans.
Now the Council of Chief State School Officers is expressing concern that some of the Trump Team’s feedback to states would actually go beyond the scope of the law…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
by Andrew Ujifusa | Jun 1, 2017 | Congress, Connecticut, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Nevada, Oklahoma, President Donald Trump, US Department of Education, Washington
With President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year now on the table, the nation’s governors have a message for Congress: Think carefully before you cut key education programs.
In a May 25 letter to the four top federal lawmakers responsible for funding the U.S. Department of Education, Gov. Brian Sandoval, R-Nev., and Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., urged Congress to “prioritize investments” in programs related to the Every Student Succeeds Act, career and technical education, and elsewhere.
“Governors’ message to Congress is clear: There must be careful consideration as to how to appropriately invest in these types of programs (and many others),” Sandoval and Inslee wrote. “Otherwise, cuts and changes not carefully considered could lead to a deterioration of state budgets.” Sandoval is the vice chairman of the NGA…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
by Alyson Klein | May 17, 2017 | Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, VIDEO
Seventeen state plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act have passed the U.S. Department of Education’s initial completeness check and are ready for peer review, the next step in the approval process, the department announced Friday.
“Today’s announcement is a big win for ESSA implementation. I am committed to returning decisionmaking power back to states and setting the department up to serve the support and monitoring roles intended by Congress,” U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in a statement. “The department worked with states to ensure their plans included all statutorily required components laid out in the…
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by Andrew Ujifusa | Apr 11, 2017 | Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Education Week, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, President Barack Obama, Tennessee, Vermont
One of the most closely watched issues in states’ Every Students Succeeds Act plans will be how they plan to assign ratings to schools. Thanks to several states that turned in their plans by the April 3 deadline, we have an early idea of where states on headed on this.
One important decision is whether to issue schools single, summative ratings (like an A-F school rating), or use a “dashboard” approach that displays how a school is doing on different indicators, but doesn’t give the school an ultimate rating.
You might remember that how to handle school ratings was one of the most contentious issues in the development of the now-discarded Obama ESSA accountability rules. The Obama Education Department initially wanted to require states to assign a single, summative rating to all schools. But Republicans in Congress and others objected, arguing that this was not a requirement in ESSA itself and was an unfair, onerous requirement…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
by Andrew Ujifusa | Apr 11, 2017 | Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Education Week, ESSA, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, President Barack Obama, Tennessee, Vermont
We’re not in NCLB land any more, Toto.
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the previous version of the nation’s main K-12 law, states have a lot of leeway in deciding what their long-term academic goals will be. That means that, unlike with the No Child Left Behind Act, there’s no requirement that all states ensure that 100 percent of students are proficient on state English/language arts and math exams by a certain school year. In the ESSA plans submitted to the U.S. Department of Education that we’ve seen so far, states have laid out a variety of long-term as well as interim goals, and a vastly different set of timelines with key dates ranging from next year all the way to 2039.
Read on to see what some of these long-term goals are in eight states and the District of Columbia. We’ve included some information about goals for graduation rates as well, but we’ve put aside English-language proficiency goals for now. Want to jump to a particular state or the District of Columbia? Just click on one of the links below:
One important note about Massachusetts: The state did not set out any academic goals in its ESSA plan. Read on or click on Massachusetts above for more info about that…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
by Alyson Klein | Apr 10, 2017 | Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Education Week, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee, Vermont
One of the parts of the Every Student Succeeds Act that excited educators the most was the chance to look beyond test scores in gauging school performance, to factors like absenteeism, access to advanced coursework, and even grit.
So what kinds of factors are states using? We looked at the handful of plans that states have submitted to the feds and shared with us.
There are some common themes, at least among this first batch. For instance, chronic absenteeism is super popular. In fact, five states Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Tennessee are all using it in some fashion. (We will be updating this post periodically as more plans come in.)…
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
by NNPA ESSA | Apr 5, 2017 | Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington
A number of states have released drafts of their ESSA plans. Here’s a compiled list of the most recent versions states have released so far.
Arizona: First Draft (9/7/16) Second Draft (11/9/16) Final Plan (1/15/17)
Colorado: First Draft (2/10/17)
Connecticut: Released plan (4/3/17)
Delaware: First Draft (11/1/16)
District of Columbia: Released Plan (4/3/17)
Hawaii: First Draft (12/28/16) Released Plan (4/3/17)
Idaho: First Draft (11/2/16)
Iowa: First Draft (01/6/17)
Illinois: First Draft (9/7/16) Second Draft (11/18/16) Released Plan (4/3/17)
Kentucky: Partial Plan Released (11/1/16)
Louisiana: First Draft (9/28/16)
Massachusetts: Released Plan (4/3/17)
Maryland: First Draft (12/5/16)
Michigan: First Draft (2/14/17)
Montana: First Draft (11/19/16) Second Draft (12/15/16)
Nevada: Released Plan (4/3/17)
New Jersey: First Draft (2/15/17)
North Carolina: First Draft (9/30/16)
North Dakota: First Draft (1/13/17)
Ohio: Second Draft (2/2/17)
Oklahoma: First Draft (11/21/16)
Tennessee: First Draft (12/19/16) Released Plan (4/3/17)
Vermont: Released Plan (4/3/17)
Washington: First Draft (9/30/16) Second Draft (11/16/16)
Source: Understanding ESSA
by Andrew Ujifusa | Feb 14, 2017 | Arizona, Education Week, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, President Donald Trump, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia
UPDATED
Betsy DeVos’ nomination for education secretary is headed to the full Senate for a vote. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the chamber by 52 to 48, so on a party line vote DeVos should be safe. But where could anti-DeVos forces pick up a crucial third vote against the nominee and overcome the tiebreaker vote held by Vice President Mike Pence? They could look to senators who’ve expressed skepticism about a crucial education policy priority for DeVos: school choice.
We know that two GOP lawmakers on the Senate education committee, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have said they’re concerned about DeVos and haven’t committed to voting for her in the full Senate.
First, let’s assume all 48 Democrats vote against DeVos. Let’s also assume, solely for the sake of argument, that Collins and Murkowski ultimately vote against DeVos. (They very well may not.) That makes it 50-50. So one more vote against DeVos eliminates Pence as a tiebreaker vote and dooms DeVos’ nomination. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has been confirmed by the Senate judiciary committee to be attorney general, but he hasn’t been confirmed by the full Senate. So as of now, he can still vote on DeVos…
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