Blog

Your Education Road Map

Politics K-12

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 This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: Federal, States.

Every Student Succeeds Act

Trump Education Dept. Responds to Colorado’s ESSA Plan

By Alyson Klein — August 14, 2017 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

It’s official! U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ team has offered feedback on all seventeen Every Student Succeeds Act plans that have been released so far. The last one on the list was Colorado, whose letter was posted publicly Monday.

If you’ve been reading other states’ ESSA feedback, the list of things that Colorado needs to address shouldn’t come as a shocker. The Centennial State must:

  • The state needs to do a better job of explaining how graduation rates and English-language proficiency—two required elements of ESSA plans—will figure into school ratings.
  • The state needs to make sure that its proficiency rates include students whose parents decide to opt them out of standardized tests.

Reminder: So far, sixteen states and the District of Columbia have turned in their ESSA plans, and four have been approved, including Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, and New Mexico. The other 34 states will submit their plans next month.

The department recently changed its process for providing feedback. At first, the department sent letters to states letting them know where their ESSA plans needed to be improved. But then the agency got pushback for going overboard with state feedback. So the department tweaked its process, first calling states to go over any trouble spots. If a state is able to address a particular concern on a phone call, it might not be reflected in its official letter from the department.

Related Tags:

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