U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Wednesday gave Nevada, New Jersey, and New Mexico the green light on their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. The three states join just one other, Delaware, whose plan was approved earlier this month.
All four states will begin implementing the law when the 2017-18 school year kicks off.
The states made some changes to win the department’s approval. For instance, Nevada changed the way science tests figure into its accountability system. And the department asked New Jersey for more specifics on how it will identify and turnaround low-performing schools. It also asked New Mexico for further detail on teacher quality…
Written by Mashea Ashton for the Arizona Informant
It’s fair to say the ultimate goal of the education reform movement, and the education community in general, is to ensure that all students – no matter where they live or what their background is – have access to a high-quality education. This is a big and intimidating challenge, an addressing it requires across-the-board commitment to three foundational goals.
First, we have to ensure that low-income families have access to high-quality educational opportunities at local private schools. Too often, those at the lower end of the income spectrum are limited to sub-par or failing public schools simply by virtue of what neighborhood they live in. This is an unacceptable outcome for those of us committed to educational equality, and that’s why we should focus time and resources on ensuring that workable solutions like vouchers and tax credits are an option for our nation’s most disadvantaged students.
Mashea Ashton
Second, we have to be committed to providing access to high-quality public charter schools. As public schools operated independently of their district, charter schools are in a unique position to lead in educational innovation, setting an example for both private and traditional district schools.
But too often they lack the funding and access to facilities that other public schools enjoy. All students deserve equal access to educational funding, facilities, and opportunities in areas where charter schools are available, and we have to work even harder to make sure charter schools are available as an option in those places that don’t currently provide educational opportunity.
Third, we have to work to improve the quality of the traditional public schools we already have. There’s a temptation for education reformers to focus on progress we can make outside district school systems. In many ways it’s easier to enact change through private and public charter schools than it is in district schools. But committing to high-quality education for all students means making sure that every school is providing the best possible education to its students.
It’s easy to embrace an “us versus them” mentality, especially between reformers and the establishment, but even among reformers. Each sector of the reform movement has its own priorities, and when we focus only on our goals we risk losing sight of our purpose. Ultimately, we’ll only realize our shared vision if we learn to work together, both as reformers with different priorities and in collaboration with the establishment.
That’s what we’re trying to do in Newark, New Jersey, where parents, educators, administrators, students, clergy, community leaders and other local stakeholders are coming together for educational opportunity. Despite significant budgetary and community challenges, we have been able to establish significant changes in the educational landscape. Nearly one-third of Newark’s public school students are now served in charter schools, and the entire community is talking about ways to continue expanding access to high-quality options.
I’ve said before, and it bears repeating, that we have to take a kids-first approach to the issue. If charter, private, and district schools can all acknowledge that we have the same universal goal, if we can acknowledge together that our children are more important than politics, ego, or legacy, we can increase access to high-quality options across the board.
Mashea Ashton serves on the board of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and is the CEO of the Newark Charter School Fund.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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.)…
It’s fair to say the ultimate goal of the education reform movement, and the education community in general, is to ensure that all students – no matter where they live or what their background is – have access to a high-quality education. This is a big and intimidating challenge, an addressing it requires across-the-board commitment to three foundational goals.
