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Politics K-12 kept watch on education policy and politics in the nation’s capital and in the states. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: Federal, States.

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Betsy DeVos OKs ESSA Plans for California, Utah

By Alyson Klein — July 12, 2018 1 min read
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U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos green-lighted California and Utah’s plans to implement the Every Student Succeed Act. That means just one state is still waiting for DeVos’ approval: Florida. (More on that state’s plan here.)

California is not planning to give schools an overall rating, such as an “A” or an “excellent.” Instead, the state will examine a broad range of factors, including test-scores, graduation rates, discipline data, and locally-selected indicators, through a color-coded dashboard. The department had questions about this approach, particularly about how the state would identify the lowest-performing schools and those with big achievement gaps between groups of students.

And DeVos herself took a jab at California’s system, without mentioning it by name, in a speech to the Council of Chief State School Officers in March. She said the state “took a simple concept like a color-coded dashboard and managed to make it nearly indecipherable.”

Utah, which has seen a drop in test-participation rates, negotiated with the department on the opt-out portion of the law, which requires schools to somehow address participation rates below 95 percent. The Beehive State will consider college- and career-readiness and science proficiency in rating its schools.


Video: ESSA Explained in 3 Minutes

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Politics K-12 blog.