Trump’s proposed 2021 budget: ESSA overhaul, Title I cuts, CTE emphasis | Education Dive

By Naaz Modan

President Donald Trump announced his proposed 2021 fiscal year budget Monday afternoon, once more suggesting cuts to the Department of Education and its notable K-12 programs.

Overall, the budget allocates $66.6 billion for the Department of Education, 7.8% or $5.6 billion less than the previous year.

Among proposed changes is a push to restructure the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into a block grant of $19.4 billion, which would consolidate major programs into its fold, including the Every Student Succeeds Act’s Title I and Title II, and amount to $4.8 billion less than what Congress approved for 2020.

Source: Trump’s proposed 2021 budget: ESSA overhaul, Title I cuts, CTE emphasis | Education Dive

Here’s Where the Every Student Succeeds Act Stands – Education Week

By Alyson Klein

The Every Student Succeeds Act turned three years old in December, but only recently have many districts and schools begun to experience the law’s impact.

That’s because states and districts have only just started identifying low-performing schools. Those schools are starting to create plans to fix their issues. And relatively soon, more schools are going to be identified for problems with particular groups of students. Plus, states are going to have to put all sorts of new information on their report cards, including financial transparency requirements. And states that are building brand-new tests are starting to putting that work to the test.

Want to dive deeper? We’ve got just the special report for you, with stories by the Politics K-12 team and our great colleague Daarel Burnette II of State EdWatch fame.

Source: Here’s Where the Every Student Succeeds Act Stands – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Betsy DeVos Releases Proposed Guidance on School Spending – Education Week

By Andrew Ujifusa

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has released proposed guidance to schools about a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act that prohibits schools from cutting state and local money from education and simply filling the hole with federal funding.

DeVos released the proposed nonregulatory guidance on Friday. Among other things, it clearly states that districts do not need to ensure that there is equal per-pupil spending between Title I schools (those with relatively high shares of low-income students) and non-Title I schools.

After ESSA passed in 2015, the Obama administration proposed regulations that would have required spending at Title I schools to be at least equal to that of the non-Title I schools. But the idea got a torrent of criticism from state and local school officials and others, although civil rights advocates in particular defended the proposal. Those regulations were never finalized before the Trump administration took over.

Source: Betsy DeVos Releases Proposed Guidance on School Spending – Politics K-12 – Education Week

DeVos Reopens Application Process for ESSA’s Innovative Assessment Pilot – Education Week

By Alyson Klein

States: Were you worried you missed the window to apply to the Every Student Succeeds Act’s innovative assessment pilot?

Then, some good news for you: The U.S. Department of Education is inviting more state applications for the testing leeway, which allows states to try out new types of tests in a handful of districts before taking them statewide.

States are being asked to let the department know if they are interested in applying by Oct. 17. Applications are due Dec. 17. More in this notice, published in the Federal Register Monday.

Source: Betsy DeVos Reopens Application Process for ESSA’s Innovative Assessment Pilot – Politics K-12 – Education Week

State ESSA Plan Approved – Year 2018 (CA Dept of Education)

California State Board of Education President Michael W. Kirst and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has approved California’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan.

“Given the differences between federal and state law, the plan approved by Secretary DeVos today represents the best possible outcome of our discussions with U.S. Department of Education staff,” Kirst said. “California is a national leader in supporting students with extra needs, providing local control over spending, encouraging community participation in schools, and releasing critical information on measures that indicate student success. Our ESSA plan allows that work to continue.”

Torlakson agreed: “California has the most ambitious plan in the nation to give additional resources to students with the greatest needs as we prepare all students for college and 21st century careers. The ESSA plan approved today will support those efforts.”

Signed by President Obama in 2015, ESSA requires every state that receives federal money for low-income students and English learners to submit and receive approval of a plan for managing and using the funds.

Source: State ESSA Plan Approved – Year 2018 (CA Dept of Education)

SBE Adopts Revised Every Student Succeeds Act Plan – Year 2018 (CA Dept of Education)

The State Board of Education today unanimously approved revisions to California’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state plan, a document that outlines the use and management of $2.4 billion in federal assistance to the state’s neediest students. California’s revised plan now moves on to the U.S. Department of Education for approval.

Every state that receives funding under ESSA is required to submit a plan to the federal government that meets federal statutory requirements.

California’s ESSA plan has been in development for more than two years with input from thousands of Californians. The revised plan affirms California’s commitment to the state’s broad overhaul of school funding and accountability ushered in by the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which provides an extra $10.1 billion annually to districts that serve low-income students, English learners, and foster youth. LCFF also gives local communities the authority to decide for themselves how best to allocate funding to address local needs.

“Because California is on the right track, it was important to work with the federal government to develop an ESSA plan that complements our state system but doesn’t drive it,” said State Board President Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford professor emeritus. “I am pleased that we have achieved that balance.”

Source: SBE Adopts Revised Every Student Succeeds Act Plan – Year 2018 (CA Dept of Education)

Federal, state visions for improving schools collide in California | EdSource

By John Fensterwald

During a presentation earlier this month on how to choose the roughly 300 lowest-performing schools that must get intensive help under federal law, a number struck some members of the State Board of Education like a brick from the sky: 3,003.

That’s the total number of schools in the state — not 300 but nine or 10 times that many — that staff estimate would require at least some form of help based on the school selection criteria that the board was considering.

That massive number is slightly under half of all schools in California receiving federal aid for low-income schools. It underscored the challenge, if not a larger threat, that the Every Student Succeeds Act could pose for the state board by diverting attention and resources from the different strategy of reform that the board is putting into place. That number is why the board called a time out and stripped any reference to the method it will use to select schools needing help — a key element of the state plan for complying with the law — from the revision it sent to the U.S. Department of Education last week.

Source: Federal, state visions for improving schools collide in California | EdSource

DeVos Has Approved ESSA Plans That Flout Federal Law, Top Democrat Says – Education Week

By Andrew Ujifusa

The top Democrat on education issues in the Senate says Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has approved state education plans that don’t comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act.

In a Tuesday hearing before the Senate education committee about federal financial aid for college, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., took the opportunity in her opening remarks to say that not every state’s ESSA plan meets the law’s requirements for schools with struggling student subgroups.

Addressing Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the committee chairman, DeVos said, “If the department is today ignoring the agreement we made in the law and just choosing to implement whatever it feels like—which I believe they are in their approval of state plans so far—then this committee needs to hear from the secretary directly about how she intends to follow the laws that Congress agrees to.”

Source: DeVos Has Approved ESSA Plans That Flout Federal Law, Top Democrat Says – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Do State ESSA Plans Have Strong Connections to Higher Education? – Education Week

By Andrew Ujifusa

We’ve written a lot about states’ long term goals in their plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act. Some of those goals deal with students’ successful transition from K-12 schools to higher education. But the extent to which states are aligning those two systems varies, at least as far as their ESSA plans go.

That’s one general conclusion reached in an analysis of ESSA plans released Wednesday by the Education Strategy Group, a consulting firm that works on college- and career-readiness with state education departments, districts, and education-oriented groups.

The group’s report found that 41 states addressed college- and career-readiness in some fashion in their proposed ESSA accountability systems. However, just 17 states “directly linked their long-term K-12 goals in ESSA to the state’s higher education attainment goals.”

Source: Do State ESSA Plans Have Strong Connections to Higher Education? – Politics K-12 – Education Week

New Professional Learning Support Director – Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced that he has appointed Barbara Murchison as Director of the California Department of Education (CDE) Professional Learning Support Division.

Murchison will oversee the division’s efforts to support educators throughout their professional career, from recruitment to leadership opportunities. This division works in collaboration across the Department and the state, helping educators implement the California Standards and curriculum frameworks.

It administers several professional learning programs for educators at all levels and in all content areas, including science, technology, engineering, math, history-social science, literacy, and arts, with the goal of ensuring equitable learning opportunities for the state’s most vulnerable students, including English learners.

Murchison most recently served as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Lead, where she helped create a plan that meets federal requirements while shifting away from top-down decision-making and toward local control that helps local school districts better meet their own needs. The plan was developed over 18 months with input from thousands of Californians.

Source: New Professional Learning Support Director – Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)

State Board of Education Approves ESSA Plan – Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)

The State Board of Education today approved a plan for using federal assistance that upholds California’s commitment to the ground-breaking educational reforms of the Local Control Funding Formula.

Every state that receives federal funding to support low-income students and English language learners is required to submit an Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan to the U.S. Department of Education. Several states submitted their plans earlier this year, while California and more than 30 other states will be submitting their plans on September 18.

The plan—essentially a grant application—allows each state to make a case for how it will utilize and manage federal dollars.California’s ESSA plan meets federal requirements while ensuring the state retains maximum flexibility to continue its shift away from top-down decision-making and toward local control that allows local school districts to better meet local needs. The plan was developed over 18 months with input from thousands of Californians.

“With the ESSA plan, we believe we have achieved the right balance between meeting federal requirements and focusing on our state priorities that will help prepare all students for college and careers,” said State Board President Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford University professor emeritus. “We look forward to working with the U.S. Department of Education as our application moves through their process.”

Source: State Board of Education Approves ESSA Plan – Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)

California’s education plan affirms commitment to local control | EdSource

By Michael Kirst

California is fast approaching the September 18 deadline to submit its draft Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan to the federal government. This plan – essentially a grant application – allows California to makes its case for utilizing federal funds to assist low-income students across the state.

Our plan meets the federal government’s requirements while affirming California’s commitment to local control that allows teachers, principals and superintendents to meet the needs of our diverse students.

However, it is shortsighted to judge California’s efforts to improve outcomes for all students by the draft plan alone. California has a much bigger plan: the Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, which has been developed over years with input from thousands of Californians and youth advocates. The Local Control Funding Formula empowers parents, students, teachers and community members to recognize inequities and develop and implement programs that meet the needs of all students.

Source: California’s education plan affirms commitment to local control | EdSource

SCOE lands grant to help homeless students – The Reporter

By Richard Bammer

A little help is on the way for Solano County’s homeless students.

The County Office of Education has been awarded a grant of nearly $38,000 by the California Department of Education to aid homeless students. Superintendent Lisette Estrella-Henderson made the announcement in a press release late last week.

She said training will be offered to local school districts to increase awareness among school staff countywide and to make sure consistent, effective practices regarding the identification of homeless students and knowledge about the kinds of resources available to meet their needs.

Homeless public school students are defined under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal law originally passed in 1987 and reauthorized by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2016. The purpose of the act is to guarantee that homeless students have the same access to education as other students.

Source: SCOE lands grant to help homeless students

ESSA’s New High School Testing Flexibility: What’s the Catch? – Education Week

By Alyson Klein

When the Every Student Succeeds Act passed, one of the things that educators were most excited about was the chance to cut down on the number of tests kids have to take, Specifically, the law allows some districts to offer a nationally recognized college-entrance exam instead of the state test for accountability.

But that flexibility could be more complicated than it appears on paper.

Here’s a case in point: Oklahoma, which hasn’t finalized its ESSA application yet, has already gotten pushback from the feds for the way that it had planned to implement the locally selected high school test option in a draft ESSA plan posted on the state department’s website. In that plan, Oklahoma sought to offer its districts a choice of two nationally recognized tests, the ACT or the SAT. Importantly, the state’s draft plan didn’t endorse one test over the other—both were considered equally okay.

Source: ESSA’s New High School Testing Flexibility: What’s the Catch? – Politics K-12 – Education Week

DeVos Team Clarifies Rules for Evidence in ESSA School Turnaround Plans – Education Week

By Andrew Ujifusa

The U.S. Department of Education has issued new requirements for how school improvement strategies under the Every Student Succeeds Act must rely on various levels of evidence.

As our colleague Sarah D. Sparks reported Sunday, the department laid out the rules that apply to school improvement and other activities under ESSA. Among other key provisions, the rules would require evidence linked to various strategies to be “relevant” to the students or groups of students identified for additional support—in other words, that the strategy has been shown to help them.

In addition, a state or district would need to show that the strategy it’s using to improve a school matches the parameters of a study showing that strategy’s benefits.

Source: DeVos Team Clarifies Rules for Evidence in ESSA School Turnaround Plans – Politics K-12 – Education Week

Making the Most of Attendance Indicators – Attendance Works

The recently submitted state plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) show that chronic absence is gaining traction as an indicator of school quality and student success. As this chart shows, the majority—14 out of the 17 officially submitted ESSA plans—includes some variant of chronic absence as an accountability indicator and many other states with plans in preparation seem likely to follow suit.

Attendance Works is excited by the opportunity that the increased focus on chronic absence provides because it has the potential to increase student achievement substantially. We now know that excessive student absences are a proven, widespread, and consequential problem in American schools. National data from the Office for Civil Rights shows that at least 6.8 million public school students missed 15 or more days of school in 2013-14, and it affects at least 89 percent of the nation’s school districts. Several high quality research studies show that the impact of chronic absence leads to lower achievement, disengagement and often dropout. Yet chronic absence can be reversed and, when attendance improves, student achievement is likely to improve.

Source: Making the Most of Attendance Indicators – Attendance Works Attendance Works

What Happens if Schools and Districts Miss New Academic Goals? Maybe Nothing – Education Week

By Andrew Ujifusa

We need to talk about those goals.

The long-term targets states have put forward in the Every Student Succeeds Act have gotten a lot of attention, positive and negative. What’s a goal? Think about things like 75 percent of students scoring proficient in English/language arts in 13 years, or getting a certain share of kids to graduate on time in eight years.

But there’s something else you should know here: In several situations there may not be any consequences for missing these big targets.

Let’s focus on districts first. Under ESSA, if a district falls short of reaching a goal on any particular indicator, nothing has to happen to that district. By contrast, under the No Child Left Behind Act, ESSA’s predecessor, the adequate yearly progress targets applied to both schools and districts.

And what about schools? Nevada plans to use its goals two different ways in school accountability. They want to use them when identifying schools for interventions, and for awarding overall points in school ratings. But there’s nothing forcing states to incorporate goals directly in this sort of way into ratings and other policies impacting individual schools.

Source: What Happens if Schools and Districts Miss New Academic Goals? Maybe Nothing – Politics K-12 – Education Week

State board, advocacy groups fundamentally disagree over plan for complying with federal education law | EdSource

By John Fensterwald

After much talk and testimony at a nine-hour meeting, the State Board of Education made modest changes last week to its draft of the state plan for complying with the Every Student Succeeds Act. Board members are confident the plan will soon be ready to pass along to the federal government for approval. Members of a coalition of two dozen civil rights and student advocacy organizations said the changes will do little to improve a plan that’s still vague and weak.

“After months of feedback and engagement, the current plan still doesn’t address the core issues that we know are absolutely essential to support high-need students,” Samantha Tran, senior director of education programming for the nonprofit Children Now, wrote in an email. “The state seems to be abdicating an essential civil rights role, and it’s disheartening.”

Source: State board, advocacy groups fundamentally disagree over plan for complying with federal education law | EdSource

On Education, The States Ask: Now What? : NPR

By Claudio Sanchez

The new federal education law is supposed to return to the states greater control over their public schools.

But judging from the mood recently at the annual conference of the Education Commission of the States, the states are anything but optimistic about the future, or about the new law.

The apprehension reminded me of the 1989 education summit convened by President George H.W. Bush. Back then the goal was to persuade governors to adopt a set of national education goals. All but a couple of states bought into the idea of “systemic change” with support from the federal government.

Source: On Education, The States Ask: Now What? : NPR Ed : NPR

State board faces deadline, tough decisions on new federal law for improving schools | EdSource

By John Fensterwald

With only two meetings left before a mid-September deadline, the State Board of Education is feeling the heat to make progress on the state plan for the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Two of the unsettled issues the board will delve into this week are the criteria for choosing the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools needing assistance and a framework for a coherent system of oversight and assistance in a state with nearly 1,000 school districts and more than 10,000 schools.

In lengthy letters, civil rights and advocacy groups in particular criticized the school selection methodology as seriously flawed. They also called for more details on how assistance would work, who’d provide it and for clearer expectations and benchmarks of progress. A lot of changes are needed in the next 60 days, before submission to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, to make a credible plan, they said.

Source: State board faces deadline, tough decisions on new federal law for improving schools | EdSource