Martin Ackley, Director of Public and Governmental Affairs 517-241-4395
LANSING – Michigan’s plan to implement the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was approved Tuesday evening by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.DeVos said it was a pleasure working with the staff at the Michigan Department of Education on the review of the state’s plan.
“Please accept my congratulations for Michigan’s approved consolidated state plan,” DeVos wrote in her approval letter to State Superintendent Brian Whiston. “Thank you for the important work that you and your staff are doing to support the transition to the ESSA and most importantly to lead Michigan’s students to achieve at high levels.”
The plan was designed to do what is best for Michigan and Michigan’s children, Whiston said, based on input from thousands of stakeholders. It was built to tightly align with Michigan’s goals and strategies to become a Top 10 education state in 10 years.
“We will continue to move forward now in making Michigan a Top 10 education state in 10 years,” Whiston said. “Thousands of stakeholders in Michigan helped build the components of our ESSA plan. It is designed by Michigan, for Michigan’s students and educators. We appreciate working with the U.S. Department of Education to get this dynamic plan approved. The pieces are in place now, and prepared to be implemented and succeed.”
Whiston said Michigan’s ESSA plan has a “whole child” focus; will have less student testing; focuses on student academic growth; institutes a Partnership Model for improving low-performing schools; has a school accountability system tied to the Top 10 in 10 Strategic Plan; gives schools more flexibility on how they choose to improve; and gives schools greater ownership in how they follow their own plans.
What will be new with Michigan’s ESSA plan:
A Parent Transparency Dashboard is being developed to give parents a clearer understanding of where their child’s school is performing on things like student achievement, academic growth, attendance, and graduation.
It has a well-rounded and whole child focus. Academics in the core subjects, as well as access to the arts, libraries, and physical education are key. Physical, social, and emotional health and support, with assistance from counselors, social workers, and health professionals also are included in the state’s commitment.
It is supportive, and not punitive. Michigan’s accountability system no longer will be a top-down hammer for low-achieving schools. It will identify “Comprehensive Support Schools” and “Targeted Support Schools” and provide varying levels of support and assistance.
It continues the Partnership Model that the state has instituted to help schools and districts most in need – developing locally-driven solutions and measures of success, with the help of other state, local, and regional partners.
Every school will be conducting a Comprehensive Needs Assessment to study their resources and data, to find their school’s needs and gaps, and develop a School Improvement Plan, based on the results of that process.
There will be greater focus on developing the best educators, providing targeted professional development for teachers; honoring and lifting up Michigan educators; creating a stronger teacher preparation and development system with Michigan colleges and universities and other partners.
Following months of public input, the Michigan Department of Education submitted this past spring its plan for meeting the requirements of ESSA, which replaced the previous No Child Left Behind Act. Amendments were made as a result of federal peer review and input from the U.S. Department of Education.
“This ESSA plan is a key component of making Michigan a Top 10 education state in 10 years,” Whiston said. “Educators, parents, legislators and community members across the state devoted significant time and effort to this plan.
“We appreciate those individuals and groups who were genuine and supportive of everyone’s efforts to come together for Michigan students and educators to achieve and succeed,” he added. “There were outliers who had different opinions, and they were heard. In the end, the plan that Secretary DeVos has approved reflects a positive partnership of the education stakeholders.”
The Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into federal law on Dec. 10, 2015, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act. This law represents a shift from broad federal oversight of primary and secondary education to greater flexibility and decision-making at the state and local levels. ESSA requires states to develop plans that address standards, assessments, school and district accountability, and special help for struggling schools.
Our first question is on a pretty key part of the law: A school-based administrator asked, “Is testing the only way a student can achieve success” under ESSA?
The short answer is: No.
The longer answer: The Every Student Succeeds Act kept in place the testing regimen from the law it replaced, the No Child Left Behind Act. That means that states still have to test students in grades three through eight and once in high school.
But ESSA allowed well actually, toldâstates they had to pick some other factor that got at school quality and student success. More than 30 states picked chronic absenteeism or attendance. And more than 35 states picked college- and career-readiness, defined as Advanced Placement participation or test scores, dual enrollment, career and technical certification, and more. Several states also included subjects other than reading and math into the mix, including science test scores. Others decided to measure school climate…
Every state has turned in a plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. So how do those plans stack up against each other and against No Child Left Behind, the previous version of the law? The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank headed up by Michael Petrili, a former Bush administration aide, is out with a look Tuesday.
Fordham judged the states on whether or not they had assigned annual ratings to schools that parents could understand, whether they encouraged schools to focus on all students or just the lowest performers, and whether the ratings were fair.
Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, students in Delaware will be held accountable for social studies and science. Massachusetts and Vermont are also incorporating science into their systems, and Illinois is hoping to add it down the line.
Both Connecticut and Vermont also want to add physical education into their accountability systems. Educators and advocates in Vermont “felt that including the physical fitness assessment would support schools in attending to the whole child and supporting school nutrition programs and instruction that will promote a life time of healthy living,” according to the state’s ESSA plan, which hasn’t yet been approved by the feds.
Schools in the Green Mountain State won’t immediately be held accountable for how many jumping jacks their students…
The plans will now be read by different teams of peer reviewers at the department. Political appointees, including U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, are forbidden from monkeying with that process. But the secretary gets to give the plans the final thumbs or down. More on how all that will work here…
As unpopular as No Child Left Behind was by the time it was ushered off the stage in 2015, advocates for students with disabilities could always point to one aspect of the law that they liked: by requiring that test scores of different student groups be reported separately, the law exposed the low academic performance of students in special education and required schools to do something about it.
The replacement for NCLB, the Every Student Succeeds Act, still requires that the academic performance of students with disabilities be reported, along with other student subgroups.
But the law trades federal mandates for state flexibility on what should happen to a school whose students with disabilities are consistently lagging their peers.
States and some lawmakers have cheered the end of what they call federal overreach. But some advocates worry that the accountability goals states have set for themselves won’t move the needle for a group of students who have long struggled with low achievement. At worst, they worry, states can create rules that allow the performance of students with disabilities to again be obscured by the relatively higher test scores of the general student population.
Lower Goals
“A lot of the really crucial decisionmaking got left to the states,” said Ricki Sabia, the senior policy advisor at the National Down Syndrome Congress. “Our concern was with how they would use this discretion.”
Sabia and Candace Cortiella, the founder of the Advocacy Institute, examined drafts of the accountability roadmaps developed by 37 states. All of the states have submitted ESSA plans to the U.S. Department of Education for evaluation; the department has given its stamp of approval to 14 states and the District of Columbia.
A reading of the draft plans illustrates some of Sabia’s and Cortiella’s concerns. In New Mexico’s accountability blueprint, for example, it set a goal for itself to increase the high school graduation rate of students with disabilities to 79 percent in 2022, up from 62 percent in 2016.
At the same time, however, the plan sets a goal to have 50 percent of students with disabilities scoring proficient on the state’sEnglish/language arts and math assessments by 2022. That’s an ambitious goal—less than 7 percent of New Mexican special education students meet that bar now.
But “it is difficult to understand how [students with disabilities] can be expected to graduate at a rate of 79 percent in 4 years while just 50 percent are expected to be proficient in reading and math,” Sabia and Cortiella wrote in a letter intended to support local advocates.
Plan Omissions
Another concern is that the goals for students with disabilities are too low. New York, for example, is aiming for 63 percent of its students with disabilities to graduate with a standard diploma by 2022, up from 55 percent in 2016. New York notes that its end goal for all students, including students with disabilities, is a 95 percent graduation rate. But it also proposes resetting its goals each year.
Educators didn’t like the 100-percent proficiency goal that was embedded in the old law, Sabia said. “But how do you say that some students aren’t going to be proficient? How do you say it’s OK if 5 percent or 10 percent aren’t? That’s what some of these new plans do.”
The education nonprofit Achieve, in its analysis of state plans, found that 26 states and the District of Columbia set the same long-term graduation goal for all subgroups. Twenty-four states set different end point goals for students with disabilities and other subgroups.
Others have pointed not to what’s in the state plans, but what they believe has been left out. Laura Kaloi is a government relations policy consultant with the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a group that represents children in special education and their families. COPAA was looking for states to offer specific plans about how to prevent bullying and harassment, discipline that removes children from the classroom, and “aversive behavioral interventions that compromise student health and safety.”
In an examination of the state plans that were submitted this spring, she said, those topics were not addressed.
“We know many, many school districts need work in this area,” Kaloi said.
The plans are light on some details because states were not required by the law to provide them. In March, the Senate overturned some accountability guidelines that were passed during the Obama administration, saying they were too prescriptive and not keeping in the spirit of the law and its focus on state-based accountability. For example, the law requires states to identify a minimum number of students in a particular subgroup that a school would have to enroll in order for that group to be counted in school accountability, known as the N-size. Under the ESSA accountability rules that the Senate threw out, states could select any N-size but had to offer a justification if they chose a number over 30. The Education Department does not require states to provide a justification for its N-size selection.
Some states, such as Ohio, have chosen to provide such justification, however, suggesting that in some cases states are committing to a more rigorous standard.
Ohio is moving from an N-size of 30 down to 15 by the 2019-2020 school year, which means that more schools will potentially be subject to accountability measures. After the change, 86 percent of the state’s schools will have to report on the progress of the special education subgroup, compared to 58 percent that are required to do so now.
Melissa Turner, the senior manager for state policy for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said her organization is also examining the state plans, with an eye to strong accountability for student subgroups, clearly defined policies that explain how states will help struggling groups of students, and greater use of accommodations and the appropriate use of “alternate assessments.”
ESSA places a 1 percent cap on the percentage of all students who can take alternate assessments. That equates to about 10 percent of students with disabilities. Such alternate assessments are intended for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Some groups, such as NCLD, have been concerned that schools have steered students to the alternate assessments in the past, instead of providing the teaching and support that would allow students to take the same tests as their peers in general education.
Positive Implications
Turner mentioned some plans that stand out as potentially positive for students with disabilities. Iowa, for example, has organized its ESSA accountability blueprint around “multitiered systems of support,” which are intended to provide research-backed instruction for all students in academics and in social-emotional development.
Turner also singled out New Hampshire for its plans for personalized learning. “That’s something that we applaud. We think that’s a strong opportunity for states to meet the needs of all kids,” she said.
The organization is concerned, as other groups are, about different goals for different student subgroups. If the overall graduation rate goal is 95 percent, it should be the same for students with disabilities, she said.
“We’re really hoping to see that gap narrow in the long-term goals,” she said.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been revised by Congress several times. In 1965, Congress created the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which was later reauthorized as The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and was most recently reauthorized in 2015 as The Every Student Succeeds Act. This act is important because it means that States and school districts are responsible to ensure that every child achieves.
According to the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), this bill is important for Special Education because it “…goes even further than the original NCLB in many ways to assist these students to successfully graduate and become college and/or career ready.” The ESSA ensures three important things for students with special needs including ensuring:
Access to the general education curriculum
Access to accommodations on assessments
Concepts of the Universal Design for Learning will be used The Every Child Succeeds Act includes provisions that require schools to provide evidence of interventions in schools with consistently underperforming subgroups. The ESSA also requires states to address things like how they will improve conditions for learning, reduce harassment and bullying, and prevent overuse of discipline practices including restraints and seclusion.
The ESSA does other important things to help students in Special Education including:
Takes a proactive role in making sure students with learning and attention issues have access to general education curriculum and are not off track from being able to receive a high school diploma
Maintains annual reporting of assessment data disaggregated by subgroups of students including students with special needs
Maintains a 1% cap (with some modification provisions) of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who can take alternative assessments that are aligned to alternative academic achievement standards
Requires disaggregation of key data about student progress to ensure that students with disabilities receive the supports they need The Every Student Succeeds Act also recognized that the IEP team (including parents) is in the best position to make important decisions related to a student’s academic, assessment, and social emotional needs.
The Every Student Succeeds Act also recognized that the IEP team (including parents) is in the best position to make important decisions related to a student’s academic, assessment, and social emotional needs. The ESSA also mentions Specialized Instructional Support Personnel (SISPs) which are able to implement early intervention programs for students who need specific support and help them to transition into a general classroom. For states that allow parents or guardians to do, the ESSA acknowledges the rights of parents and guardians to opt their children out of statewide academic assessments.
As part of each episode of Transition Tuesday, we provide additional tips, teacher tools, and resources related to the topics we cover. For this week’s bonus, we are providing a PDF with three great resources regarding the Every Student Succeeds Act, which can be accessed by clicking this link – http://tensigma.org/episode84bonus
To learn more about Ten Sigma’s educational resources for teachers or parents, please visit our website http://tensigma.org and you can also connect with us on social media at:
If you know anyone else who would benefit from the information we share in these videos, please share this video and invite them to visit http://transitiontuesday.org We hope you enjoyed this episode and that the information we shared about the Every Student Succeeds Act is helpful to you.
Set your DVR: President Donald Trump will be speaking at the Heritage Foundation’s “President’s Club” meeting Tuesday night. There’s no way to know whether, or how much, education will play in the speech. Supposedly, taxes are the big focus.
Presidents don’t address think tanks often, though, so this speech is a signal of Heritage’s influence in Trump’s Washington. And that matters for education because Heritage’s lobbying armâthe Heritage Action Fundâhas been an active player on K-12 policy in recent years.
Generally, the think tank has pushed for a much a smaller role for the feds in schools. Heritage has even opposed some Republican ideas for expanding school choiceâlike a federal tax credit scholarship programâbecause they’re worried about growing the federal footprint on K-12…
Washington – When the Every Student Succeeds Act passed in 2015, there was widespread worry that states would walk away from making sure that particular groups of students, English-language learners, students in special education, and racial minorities, mattered in their school accountability systems.
Now that pretty much every state has filed its plan to implement the law have those fears become the reality?
States are working to make sure that’s not the case, said several state chiefs who spoke on a panel here moderated by Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. (Some advocates are skeptical more…
Last week, late nights, family road trips, and endless leisure came to an abrupt halt as children across the country headed back to school. This year, however, there is something else that requires adjustment besides early mornings and evening homework assignments. This year, a revised national education law goes into effect: the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA is the reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) signed into law by Barack Obama in 2015.
ESEA included landmark legislation such as the Adult Education Act (1966), which provided funding for supplemental education centers and mandated educational programming even during “out-of-session” periods for isolated and rural areas; the Women’s Educational Equity Act, which protected women and girls from discrimination in education; ESEA also included protections for those who suffer from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or disability. ESEA has been updated every five years since it was signed into law. The original intention of ESEA was to provide equal access to quality education, emphasize high standards and accountability, authorize funds for professional development, design effective instructional materials, provide supplemental education programs, and promote parental involvement.
Previous reauthorizations include the now infamous No Child Left Behind (NCLB), signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001. ESSA replaces NCLB.
Education has been hailed the “new civil rights issue.” However, as we know, all too well, a law alone will not save us. The unanimous decision in Brown v. the Board of Education occurred in 1954; it was not until 1988 that school integration reached an all-time high with 45 percent of Black students attending majority-White schools. In 2003, a study by Harvard’s Civil Rights Project found that schools were more segregated in 2000 than in 1970 when busing for desegregation began. So we see, that laws alone will not fix decades of restricted access and rationed opportunity. We also can conclude that without a watchful eye we are bound to repeat history.
During an interview at the University of California Berkley on October 11, 1963, Malcolm X said that if the government, “really passed meaningful laws, it would not be necessary to pass any more laws. There are already enough laws on the law books to protect an American citizen. You only need additional laws when you are dealing with someone, who is not regarded as an American citizen.”
The goal of the 2015 reauthorization of ESEA is equity, but so was that the goal in 1965. A major component of both the 1965 ESEA and ESSA as the 2015 reauthorization is parental involvement. We must be the change we want to see. Laws are an opportunity to hold our leaders accountable. We must hold ourselves accountable for the academic success of our children. At the 1979 Amandla Festival in support of relief and humanitarian aid to Southern Africa, Dick Gregory, in his fifteen minute introduction of Bob Marley and Wailers, stated:
“We the decent people of this planet must stand up and say to the rest of them inhumane, cruel beast that we are not going to tolerate it no more. And then they’ll say, “what are you gon’ do about it?” If I don’t do nothing, but get out of my bed everyday and look myself in the face in the quietness of my living room and say, “I’m not gon’ tolerate it no more, I’m not gon’ tolerate it no more, I’m not gon’ tolerate it no more” that alone, when enough people stand doing it, is enough to win.”
So, let’s challenge ourselves this academic year to say, “we not gon’ tolerate it no more.” We are not going to tolerate inadequate resources, unqualified teachers, unresponsive school boards, and low academic standards. Let’s challenge our children to rise to the occasion. Let’s challenge ourselves to attend community meetings, to join the PTA, to check our children’s homework, and to make sure our children’s teachers know us by name.
Learn more about the Every Student Succeeds Act at nnpa.org/essa.
Lynette Monroe is a master’s student at Howard University. Her research area is public policy and national development. Ms. Monroe is the program assistant for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow Lynette Monroe on Twitter @_monroedoctrine.
Martin Ackley, Director of Public and Governmental Affairs 517-241-4395
Welcome to the very first installment of “Answering Your ESSA Questions.” 
