The Trump administration’s waiving of federally required testing normally required under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) does not apply to homeschooling families, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). While schools will not need to adhere to ESSA’s federal testing requirements in...
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump Administration “moved to waive federal requirements for standardized tests for students in kindergarten through 12th grade and gave borrowers with student loans the option of suspending payments.” Those with federal student loan debt can request a postponement...
In EducationNext, Erica Blom and Theresa Anderson make a case for the use of regression-adjusted graduation rates to compare schools “against other schools with similar demographics, allowing for fairer comparisons.” This, they argue, “allows the performance of entire schools to be meaningfully compared without having...
As Phyllis W. Jordan writes for FutureEd, the spread of coronavirus and the need for social distancing is posing serious challenges for states that use chronic absenteeism as a factor for determining school performance and accountability. “Currently, 36 states and the District of Columbia use...
As Jim Cowen writes for Forbes, the wave of school closures has rightly sparked a discussion about the “issues of providing meals and other educational services to America’s school children.” In addition, these closures increase the likelihood that “many students will be out of school...
As reported by Education Week, COVID-19 could have a significant impact on “chronic absenteeism rates that will be publicly reported and, for many schools, used in their states’ accountability systems that determine how well they performed.” Under ESSA, states have been pushed to look “beyond traditional...
Collaborative for Student Success Executive Director Jim Cowen penned an op-ed for Forbes highlighting the significant impact school-level, per-pupil spending will have on education finance. While states have reported how much money a school district spends per student for decades, a provision in ESSA is...
As Katie Novak writes for Language Magazine, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles can help English language learners have a richer, more transformative experience in the classroom. ESSA “urges states to adopt UDL in a number of areas,” including using UDL principles to design assessments...
As reported in EdWeek Market Brief, the Department of Education received a wide range of feedback on a proposal that would expand access to a grant program that helps more states develop and implement their own innovative assessment programs, established by ESSA as “a way...
The Education Commission of the States released an outline providing states and districts with a broad overview of how they can leverage funds from ESSA and Perkins V to support their STEAM education efforts. According to the report, ESSA section 4107 3-c-vi permits local education...
