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7/29/2019 ESEAFlex: Protecting School & Student Accountability - USDOE
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Protecting School andStudent Accountability
BACKGROUND:The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) has directedederal resources to schools or more than our decades to help ensure
all children have equal access to a quality education. The most recentreauthorizationor congressional update to the lawoccurred with the
passage o the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB). Although ESEAwas due or reauthorization in 2007, NCLB has governed education policy
in states and school districts or more than a decade. While waiting orCongress to complete its next reauthorization, the U.S. Department oEducation has oered states exibility rom prescriptive provisions o the law
that have become barriers to state and local implementation o innovativeeducation reorms. ESEA exibility moves away rom top-down policies,
instead supporting decisions inormed by data and expertise at the stateand local levels. All participating states must show how their reorm plans
advance all students achievement by maintaining a high bar or studentsuccess, closing achievement gaps, improving the quality o instruction,
and increasing equity by better targeting support and resources to schoolsbased on need.
DISCUSSION:
All students deserve the same opportunity to learn and thrive no matterwhere they live. ESEA exibility enables state and district education
ocials, principals, and teachers to implement systems o accountability,support, and recognition or their schools that are tailored to local contexts
and the unique needs o individual schools. As a part o these systems,
states approved or ESEA exibility must maintain high standards orstudent perormance and commit to eliminating achievement gaps betweendisadvantaged students and their peers. States also must individualize
their education improvement eorts by targeting their lowest-perormingschools and schools with the largest achievement gaps or intensiveinterventions and by acknowledging schools that make progress toward
college- and career-ready standards.* All schools must thereore usesubgroup perormance data against achievement and graduation rate targets
to drive interventions and supports. These locally created accountability
systems include more students, better ocus support on school and studentneeds, and require more aggressive action or chronic low perormance
than measures under NCLB. How states and districts support subgroupso students must be driven by their progress toward meeting assessmentperormance targets and graduation rates.
Through ESEA exibility, the Department will both recognize states or demonstrating successsuch as creatingindividualized systems o school accountability and supportand challenge states that all short o their goals to pursue
rigorous reorm eorts that ocus on what is best or students.
*See the Defnition Box.
Defnition Box:
*College- and Career-Ready Standards:Content standards or kindergartenthrough 12th grade that build towardcollege and career readiness by thetime o high school graduation.
*Title I: A ederally unded programproviding fnancial assistance to localeducational agencies and schools with ahigh percentage o children rom low-income amilies to help ensure that allchildren meet state academic standards.
History in Review:
ESEA, through its successivereauthorizations by Congress,consistently strived to highlightthe education inequities betweendisadvantaged students and theirpeers. Yet, until its 2001 reauthorization,a public school receiving ederalTitle I* unds could overlook disparities
in student subgroup perormance ithat schools overall student populationperormed well. NCLB exposed dramaticperormance disparities by requiringschools to disaggregateor break outtheir student test data by subgroups thatinclude students with disabilities, EnglishLearners, racial and ethnic minorities andunderprivileged students. ESEA exibilityrequires states to maintain a commitmentto report the perormance o all studentsubgroups, taking action in schools thatdont measure up, yet also providingrewards or subgroup perormance gains.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Progress
Schools
ChallengeGrowth
Innovation
Data
Waivers States
Teachers
Reform
Collaboration
Improvement
Goals
Success
Local
Students
7/29/2019 ESEAFlex: Protecting School & Student Accountability - USDOE
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STATES IN ACTION:
Examples o strong plans that states have proposed to protect school and
student accountability ollow.
Colorados exibility plan ocuses on the growth o individual
students to ensure they graduate ready to succeed in college ora career. The plan:
MakesdecisionsbasedonthedataColoradoreceives
on district, school, and student growth, as well as
achievement, graduation rates, dropout rates, and college
readiness. Based on this inormation, the state will
categorize schools by our levels; and
Providesschoolsanddistrictsinthelowestcategorieswiththemosthands-onassistancefrom
the state in order to create improvement plans and implement the most rigorous interventions,
while the highest-category schools and districts will be allowed more autonomy.
New Yorks exibility plan will ocus on the district and school levels.
Eachdistrictwillbecategorizedbybothitsgraduationrateanditsabilitytomeetsubgroup
perormance goals.
Ifadistrictsoverallperformancehasbeenhighlyrated,butindividualsubgroupsdonotmeet
their goals, the district nonetheless will receive hands-on assistance rom the state.
Marylands plan categorizes each o its schools into one o fve perormance strands:
Delineatingdierentlevelsofsupportbasedontheneedsandperformancefeaturesofeach
strand; and
Utilizingaperformanceindexbasedonstudentgrowth;graduationrate;dropoutrate;andstudent
achievement in reading, mathematics, and science.
I ully support the undamental goal o accountability, but I have never elt comortable with theone-size-fts-all nature o NCLB. Tese waivers allow us to better meet the needs o our schools and
students while also giving clear inormation to parents about perormance and progress.
- North Carolina State Superintendent June Atkinson
ESEA fexibility granted May 29, 2012
Fast Facts:
Asofthe2012-2013schoolyear,
a total o 45 states and the District
o Columbia have adopted college-
and career-ready standards. Inthe2010-2011schoolyear,only
51 percent o schools nationally met
their annual perormance targets.
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