Indiana

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No Child Left Behind Update Will Soon Come To Indiana

    April 5, 2016 | 5:00 AM
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    There’s a new federal education law coming to town. It’s the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the updated version of George W. Bush’s federal education law, No Child Left Behind. Since ESSA was introduced, states have been waiting to learn how it will affect local schools, and it looks like that time is soon.

    After Congress passed an updated version of the No Child Left Behind law, called the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have been waiting on the details to know how it will affect local testing and accountability measures.

    If you recall, No Child Left Behind, passed in 2002, was the education law that mandated standardized testing exist for students in grades three through eight and once in high school. It also created the current accountability system for schools and teachers.

    When Congress set out to re-write those regulations, they aimed to write a law that gives states more control on how they test students and hold them accountable. A lot of the major criticisms of No Child Left Behind, like annual testing and high stakes accountability measures, are still in place. But now, states could have more flexibility to determine what testing and accountability look like in their state.

    The exact logistics are still up in the air. In the last few weeks, educators from around the country convened to work with the U.S. Department of Education to create solid guidelines for states.

    These discussions led the USED to release a draft Friday of regulations having to do with testing and federal education funding.

    In terms of testing, EdWeek’s Politics K-12 blog summarizes some of the draft regulations proposed by the USED:

    Computer-Adaptive tests: Under the regulations, computer-adaptive tests used for accountability would have to be able to determine whether a student is on grade level. The department released similar language ahead of the negotiations.

    Eighth grade math tests: Under the proposed regulations, students who take a higher-level math test for accountability purposes (say, an Algebra test, usually given to high schoolers) must be given access to accommodations if they are English language learners, or students in special education. What’s more, the state has to show that all students have the opportunity to be prepared for and take advanced math in middle school. It’s unclear how that will fly with negotiators. Some, including Tony Evers, the state superintendent in Wisconsin, worried that requiring states to make sure everyone has access to advanced math might be too big a burden.

    Local high school assessment: ESSA allows districts to substitute a “nationally recognized test” for accountability purposes at the local level, instead of the state exam, but the law doesn’t say what a nationally recognized test is, exactly. The draft regs define it as any test used for college entrance (i.e. the SAT or ACT) or any test that’s been designed for the purpose of college placement. That would seem to allow PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests, federally-funded tests aligned to the Common Core State Standards, to be part of the mix. States would also have to ensure appropriate accommodations for students in special education and English-language learners,something states using the ACT and SAT for accountability have struggled with. (Negotiators really stressed this issue during discussions late last month.)

    Tests for Students with Disabilities: Under ESSA, states can give alternative tests for students with the most-severe cognitive disabilities to 1 percent of special education students. It’s not clear how this will work on a district-by-district basis, so the proposed regs outline circumstances where a district might go over the cap. (For instance, if health programs and schools in the area have noticed a lot of kids with severe cognitive disabilities.) ESSA also allows states to seek a waiver from that requirement, and proposed regs make it clear what steps states need to go through to get that waiver. (A state can’t, for example, start really ramping up the number of alternative tests it gives, and expect to get a waiver unless its population has changed significantly.) What’s more, the proposed regulations open the door for a subcommittee of negotiators to define “severe cognitive disabilities”—something that generated controversy among negotiators.

    Tests for English-Language Learners: The proposed regulations say states need to come up with a common test to measure English-language proficiency. And states need to make it clear that they must do more to spell out how they are developing tests for students in their native languages.

    The other area with new regulations is called supplement-not-supplant. This means USED want funds given to schools with disadvantaged students, to supplement state funds, not be the sole funding source.

    The regulations around this topic let states choose how to report how they distribute federal funds, say states must allocate its own money to students with disabilities and English learners, and give discretion on the timeline for reporting.

    The group of local educators working with the USED to create ESSA regulations reconvenes Wednesday.

    While this summit is happening, a few other education conferences are meeting in D.C. this week, and ESSA implementation is a major agenda item. This includes the Council of Chief State School Officers’ meeting (state superintendent Glenda Ritz is attending) and the National Association of State Boards of Education (which SBOE member Byron Ernest is attending).

    Here are a few people tweeting from these conferences, if you want to follow along the next few days:

     

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