The Every Student Succeeds Act may have kept annual testing as a federal requirement. But it also aims to help states cut down on the number of assessments their students must take by giving districts the chance to use a nationally-recognized college entrance exam, instead of the regular state test, for accountability purposes.
When the law passed back in 2015, some superintendents hailed the change, saying it would mean one less test for many 11th graders, who would already be preparing for the SAT or ACT. Assessment experts, on the other hand, worried the change would make student progress a lot harder to track.
Now, more than two years after the law passed, it appears that only two states—North Dakota and Oklahoma—have immediate plans to offer their districts a choice of tests. Policymakers in at least two other states—Georgia and Florida—are thinking through the issue. Arizona and Oregon could also be in the mix.
That’s not exactly a mad dash to take advantage of the flexibility.
Offering a choice of tests can be a tall order for state education officials, said Julie Woods, a senior policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States. They have to figure out how to pay for the college entrance exams, design a process for districts to apply for the flexibility, and find a way to compare student scores on the state test to scores on the SAT, ACT, or another test.
That’s “potentially a lot more work than states are currently doing,” Woods said. “States have to decide what the payoff is for them…”
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With the 2018-19 school year in full swing, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has finished approving nearly every state’s plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. But in some ways, the federal government’s work on ESSA is just beginning.
The federal K-12 law’s hallmark may be state and local control, yet the Education Department still has the responsibility to oversee the more than $21 billion in federal funding pumped out to states and districts under ESSA. That will often take the form of monitoring—in which federal officials take a deep look at state and local implementation of the law.
And the department has other oversight powers, including issuing guidance on the law’s implementation, writing reports on ESSA, and deciding when and how states can revise their plans.
Even though ESSA includes a host of prohibitions on the education secretary’s role, DeVos and her team have broad leeway to decide what those processes should look like, said Reg Leichty, a co-founder of Foresight Law + Policy, a law firm in Washington.
Given the Trump team’s emphasis on local control, “I think they’ll try for a lighter touch” than past administrations, Leichty said. But there are still requirements in the law the department must fill, he added.
“States and districts shouldn’t expect the system to be fundamentally different [from under previous versions of the law.] They are still going to have to file a lot of data,” Leitchy said.
But advocates for traditionally overlooked groups of students aren’t holding their breath for a robust monitoring process, in part because they think the department has already approved state plans that skirt ESSA’s requirements…
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The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) this morning received encouraging feedback from the U.S. Department of Education (USED) following a review of its State plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). USED officials gave the indication for “ultimate approval of the plan” during a call with HIDOE officials.
“We had a great discussion with federal education officials who determined that Hawaii is well on its way for approval once we make minor adjustments to our consolidated plan,” said Superintendent Dr. Christina Kishimoto. “The State plan is a culmination of a community effort and it’s rewarding to see that the USED recognizes Hawaii’s effort and commitment to providing equitable and accessible education.”
ESSA is a reauthorization of the federal education law known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It replaces the prior reauthorization, most commonly known as No Child Left Behind.
Following the Hawaii State Board of Education approval, the Superintendent and Governor David Ige submitted the signed state’s ESSA plan to USED in September 2017. The Hawaii ESSA plan is designed to support HIDOE’s Strategic Plan objectives, which provides common direction for public schools to empower students in their learning.
“I’m pleased to learn that we are close to getting our ESSA plan approved,” said BOE Chairman Lance Mizumoto. “The plan reflects our collective commitment to providing a well-rounded education for all students.”
HIDOE is making the necessary adjustments where further clarification is being sought on student supports that are already in place. Once the non-substantial changes are made, Superintendent Kishimoto will send the State plan to the USED for final approval.
EDUCATION WEEK — Minnesota, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia have some work to do on their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
All four states, who were among the 34 that turned in their plans this fall, were flagged for issues with accountability, helping low-performing schools improve, and other areas. So far, ten other states that turned in their plans this fall — Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming—have received feedback from the feds. Puerto Rico has also gotten a response on its plan. (Check out our summaries of their feedback here and here.)
Plus, sixteen states and the District of Columbia, all of which submitted plans in the spring, have gotten the all-clear from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Colorado, which asked for extra time on its application, is the only spring state still waiting for approval.
So what problems did the department find in this latest round of states? Here’s a quick look. Click on the state’s name for a link to the feds’ letter…
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SUMMARY: In accordance with section 5005 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Secretary seeks information from the public regarding actions the Department of Education (Department) can take to improve how it considers the unique needs of rural schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) as it develops and implements its policies and programs. The Secretary intends to use this information in issuing a final report, required under section 5005, describing the actions it will take to increase the consideration and participation of rural schools and LEAs in the development and execution of the Department’s processes, procedures, policies, and regulations. (Preliminary report in pdf format)
DATES: We must receive your comments no later than February 18, 2018.
ADDRESSES: Submit your comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal or via postal mail, commercial delivery, hand delivery, or email. To ensure that we do not receive duplicate copies, please submit your comments only once. In addition, please include the Docket ID (ED-2017-OCO-0139) at the top of your comments.
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to www.regulations.gov to submit your comments electronically. Information on using Regulations.gov, including instructions for accessing agency documents, submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site under the “Help” tab.
Postal Mail, Commercial Delivery, Hand Delivery, or Email: The Department encourages commenters to submit their comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal. However, if you mail or deliver your comments in response to this request, address them to Michael Chamberlain, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, room 5E260, Washington, DC 20202. If you email your comments, send them to rural@ed.gov.
Privacy Note: The Department’s policy is to make all comments received from members of the public available for public viewing in their entirety on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov. Therefore, commenters should be careful to include in their comments only information that they wish to make publicly available.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael Chamberlain, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, room 5E260, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 453-7527 or by email: Michael.chamberlain@ed.gov.
If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf or a text telephone, call the Federal Relay Service, toll free, at 1-800-877-8339.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background: Section 5005 of the ESSA (Pub. Law 114-95), which was enacted on December 10, 2015, requires the Department to:
“review the organization, structure, and process and procedures of the Department of Education for administering its programs and developing policy and regulations, in order to—
(A) assess the methods and manner through which, and the extent to which, the Department of Education takes into account, considers input from, and addresses the unique needs and characteristics of rural schools and rural local educational agencies; and
(B) determine actions that the Department of Education can take to meaningfully increase the consideration and participation of rural schools and rural local educational agencies in the development and execution of the processes, procedures, policies, and regulations of the Department of Education.”
Section 5005 also requires the Department to publish a preliminary report containing the information described above and provide Congress and the public with 60 days to comment on the proposed actions. Thereafter, the Department must issue a final report to the Department’s authorizing committees in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and carry out each action described in the final report or explain to the authorizing committees the reason for not carrying out any action described in the final report.
Request for Information: Since the passage of the ESSA, the Department has been engaging in the required review and report, including conducting listening sessions on issues facing rural schools and LEAs and ways the Department can address those issues. It gives a brief overview of how the Department is organized and describes how the Department solicited and incorporated input from rural stakeholders as it developed the preliminary report. Additionally, the report explains the processes we currently use to incorporate the rural perspective into our policies and procedures, including processes we have recently implemented in response to stakeholder input, and describes additional proposed actions we can take.
While we invite comment on the entire report, we particularly encourage comment on the proposed actions, as described in the section of the report titled “Additional Actions the Department Can Take to Increase Rural Stakeholder Input.” Specifically, we request feedback on whether:
The actions described in the preliminary report will meaningfully increase the consideration and participation of rural schools and LEAs in the development and execution of the Department’s processes, procedures, policies, and regulations; and
There are other actions the Department can take to achieve this goal.
Accessible Format: Individuals with disabilities can obtain this document in an accessible format (e.g., braille, large print, audiotape, or compact disc) on request to the program contact person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations is available via the Federal Digital System at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. At this site, you can view this document, as well as all other documents of this Department published in the Federal Register, in text or Portable Document Format (PDF). To use PDF, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at the site.
You may also access documents of the Department published in the Federal Register by using the article search feature at: www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published by the Department.
Do state plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act do enough to shine a spotlight on historically disadvantaged groups of students—and do they give schools the tools they need to improve outcomes for those children?
“What we are seeing so far is not encouraging,” concludes a report from The Education Trust, a Washington-based organization that advocates for low-income and minority students. “For all the talk about equity surrounding ESSA, too many state leaders have taken a pass on clearly naming and acting on schools’ underperformance for low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners.”
Education Trust, whose executive director, John B. King Jr., served as President Barack Obama’s last secretary of education, reviewed the 17 ESSA plans submitted to the department so far, as well as the 34 that have been submitted. It found that:
In general, states picked indicators that get at whether students are learning, including chronic absenteeism, college and career readiness, and on-track graduation. But some states picked so many indicators that it will be that there’s a “real risk” schools won’t have the incentive to improve on any of them, the advocacy group said. Example: Connecticut and Arkansas each have more than 10 indicators. Plus, some states, including Louisiana, have proposed indicators that aren’t ready for rollout yet…
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Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming are the latest states to receive feedback on their plans for implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The U.S. Department of Education staffers seem to be burning the midnight oil on feedback letters lately. Four other states—Georgia, Maryland, Puerto Rico, and Utah—got responses last week. Every state has submitted a plan to implement ESSA. And 16 states and the District of Columbia have had their plans approved.
So what do the latest letters say? They are extensive and almost all of them ask for a lot more detail on testing, school turnarounds, accountability, goals, teacher distribution, and more.
Here’s a quick look at some highlights. Click on the state name to read the full letter.
Alabama: The department wants to state to make its student achievement goals clearer, and better explain how student growth on state tests would be used to calculate a school’s academic score. And the feds aren’t clear on how Alabama will calculate English-language proficiency and incorporate it into school ratings—an ESSA must. The state also needs to make it clear that it will flag schools that don’t get federal Title I money for extra supports with subgroups of students…
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by Nancy Andrews for Connecticut Education Association
Connecticut teachers are urging legislators to take up the critical issue of education funding when they convene for a special session later this month to focus on the draconian cuts devastating the state’s public schools and shortchanging students’ education.
“While we appreciate legislators standing up for our senior citizens, our youngest and most vulnerable citizens are also facing peril with continued school funding cuts that must be addressed,” said CEA President Sheila Cohen. “The time for action is now. Our children can’t wait until next February. Legislators must take up the issue in special session.”
Governor Malloy recently cut an additional $58 million in ECS funding, and more cuts are planned in 2018. As Connecticut’s cities and towns struggle to make up these costs, many are planning to cut school resources, eliminate educational programs, and lay off teachers.
“These funding cuts are creating chaos in our schools and causing disruptions for students, parents, teachers, and communities in the middle of the school year,” said Cohen. “Every day our teachers are being asked to do more with less, and every day our students are being shortchanged by cuts in education funding. Education funding is being strangled in a budget nightmare that has created an economic crisis in our schools.”
Hundreds of teachers have also reached out to legislators. In phone calls and emails, teachers are asking legislators to do the right thing and protect Connecticut’s children.
Cohen stressed, “Without providing critical funding, the state is irreversibly jeopardizing the future of Connecticut’s students and the future of our state. Our children and our public schools are too important to cast aside and just hope for the best. We need to support the education of our children.”
Since taking office last February, the U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has eliminated dozens of education directives to school officials. Now the Education Department is reconsidering a rule intended to hold states to a higher standard when determining if districts have overenrolled minority students in special education. It has also signaled an intention to pull back on considering “systemic” causes of discrimination during civil rights investigations at schools.
The unprecedented cleansing and revisions of Department of Education guidance to states, school districts, and private schools is passed off largely as a response to President Donald Trump’s simplistic Jan. 30 executive order that agencies remove two regulatory documents for every one issued. Even if, as has been reported, large swaths of the documents the department has eliminated so far have been out-of-date or superfluous, other guidance revisions have grave implications for marginalized students. The department’s headline-making withdrawal of Obama-era policy guidance permitting transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identities is just one such example.LLL
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David C. Bloomfield is a professor of educational leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He is the author of American Public Education Law, 3rd Edition. Alan A. Aja is an associate professor in the department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College.
The Department of Education’s (Education) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and postsecondary schools collect, use, and share a variety of information—including personally identifiable information (PII)—from students, their families, and others to support the administration of student aid. This information is used to make decisions about the eligibility of schools to participate in federal student aid programs, the processing of student applications and students’ eligibility to receive various types of aid, the disbursement of funds to aid recipients, and the repayment of loans and recovery of defaulted loan payments.
Education and FSA have established policies and procedures for managing and protecting student information that are aligned with applicable federal laws. However, shortcomings in key areas hinder the effectiveness of FSA’s procedures. For example, FSA established procedures and tools for managing and organizing records and scheduling them for disposition, but did not fully establish such procedures for electronic data, ensure that employees regularly received training, or conduct a required internal assessment of its records management program. Regarding the protection of student information, FSA did not consistently analyze privacy risks for its electronic information systems, and policies and procedures for protecting information systems were not always up to date. FSA’s shortcomings are consistent with the Education Inspector General’s identification of persistent weaknesses in the department’s information security policies, procedures, and controls. Recommendations to address these weaknesses are not yet fully implemented. Until FSA implements the recommendations, it increases the risk of improper disclosure of information contained in student aid records.
Based on a GAO survey of schools, the majority (an estimated 95 percent of all schools) of those participating in the federal student aid process reported having policies in place, including records retention and disposition policies. However, schools varied in the methods they used to store records, the retention periods for paper and electronic records, and the disposition control activities they employed (such as the authorization and approval process for destroying records).
FSA oversees schools’ participation in student aid programs, but this oversight does not extend to schools’ information security programs. To oversee schools’ compliance, FSA conducts reviews of schools’ student aid programs, based on a number of risk factors. However, it has not identified implementation of information security programs as a factor to consider in selecting schools for program reviews, even though schools have reported serious data breaches. GAO’s review of selected schools’ policies found that schools did not always include required information security elements, such as assessing risks or designing and implementing safeguards. Moreover, Education’s implementing regulations do not require schools to demonstrate their ability to protect student information as a condition for participating in federal aid programs. This raises concerns about FSA’s oversight and how effectively schools are protecting student aid information. Until Education ensures that information security requirements are considered in program reviews of schools, FSA will lack assurance that schools have effective information security programs.
Why GAO Did This Study
FSA oversees the award of billions of dollars in federal student aid to eligible students each year. The processing of student aid requires FSA, along with participating schools, to perform a range of functions across the student aid life cycle, including the management of PII on students and their families.
GAO was asked to examine how FSA and schools manage federal student aid records. The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe how FSA and schools use information they collect to manage the federal student aid program, (2) determine the extent to which FSA policies and procedures for managing and protecting this information align with federal requirements, (3) describe the extent to which schools have established policies and procedures for managing student aid information, and (4) determine the extent to which FSA ensures that schools protect this information. To do this, GAO reviewed Education and FSA policies and interviewed agency officials. GAO also administered a survey to a stratified random sample of 560 schools that is generalizable to the population of about 6,200 schools.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that FSA take seven actions to strengthen its management and protection of federal student aid records and enhance its oversight of schools. FSA concurred or generally concurred with five of GAO’s recommendations, partially concurred with another, and did not concur with another. GAO believes all of the recommendations as discussed in the report are warranted.
For more information, contact Nick Marinos at (202) 512-9342 or marinosn@gao.gov.
With the 2018-19 school year in full swing, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has finished approving nearly every state’s plan to implement the 
SUMMARY: In accordance with section 5005 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Secretary seeks information from the public regarding actions the Department of Education (Department) can take to improve how it considers the unique needs of rural schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) as it develops and implements its policies and programs. The Secretary intends to use this information in issuing a final report, required under section 5005, describing the actions it will take to increase the consideration and participation of rural schools and LEAs in the development and execution of the Department’s processes, procedures, policies, and regulations. (
