Montana has released federally required school report cards for the 2019-20 school year, while flagging that some key data points that typically rely on student test scores would be missing as assessments were canceled at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the missing data,...
Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen announced a statewide dropout rate of less than 2%, a historic low and a possible indicator of coming increases to the graduation rate. Arntzen credited persistent actions taken under the state’s ESSA plan to increase graduation rates, engage...
As reported in the Montana Standard, “cuts to a program that provides funding to rural schools serving students from low-income families will be delayed after mounting criticism.” Previously, the U.S. Department of Education had proposed changes to the Rural Low-Income Schools program’s eligibility requirements. A...
According to an article in the Flathead Beacon, Montana education officials are raising concerns over how a proposed change by the U.S. Department of Education could impact local schools. The Department is proposing to change the way it determines qualification for rural low-income grants, basing...
According to the Sydney Herald, Montana has received a five-year, $50 million literacy grant from the U.S. Department of Education as part of the Striving Readers Comprehensive State Development Program. The grant has several “outcome expectations,” including increasing “the percentage of all participating disadvantaged student...
Matt Hoffman reports for the Billings Gazette that Montana “punted” on the state’s definition of an “ineffective teacher” under ESSA, which requires states to specifically define this term. Though the state won approval for its ESSA plan, it do so while saying it would define...
Corin Cates-Carney reports for MTPR that Montana public school parents “will soon have a new tool to see how their local school’s academic scores compare to others across the state.” According to a spokesperson for the Montana Office of Public Instruction, the state’s ESSA report...
Matt Hoffman writes for the Ravalli Republic that Montana “won’t be releasing its new report cards that evaluate school performance in December as previously planned.” Pointing to “guidance from the Department of Education about the Every Student Succeeds Act,” Montana education officials announced they would not...
Matt Hoffman reports that Montana’s new, ESSA-based “report card for telling the public how schools are performing won’t assign an overall grade,” but will instead “focus on comparing schools across individual categories.”
The Dept. of Education sent letters to Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming enumerating federal feedback on their ESSA plans.
