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Trump Ed. Dept. Gives ESSA Feedback to Five More States

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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Trump Team Hurries to Soothe States Worried About ESSA

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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NATIONAL: Seventeen State ESSA Plans Now Complete and Ready for Review

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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A Look at How Some States Want to Handle School Ratings in ESSA Plans

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…

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What Are the Long-Term Academic Goals in States’ ESSA Plans?

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…

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Which School Quality Factors Are States Including in Their ESSA Plans?

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.)…

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