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This update on the Every Student Succeeds Act and the education plans now being refined by state legislatures is produced in partnership with ESSA Essentials, a new series from the Collaborative for Student Success. It鈥檚 an offshoot of their聽聽newsletter, which you can聽! (See our recent ESSA updates聽from previous weeks right here.)

In聽Louisiana, as part of the state鈥檚 ESSA plan, education officials have created a user-friendly platform, which is 鈥渁ble to host a wide array of information on school and [child care] center quality,鈥� and present it in ways that are clear and understandable, according to . The platform, called , was unveiled on Nov. 7. 鈥淟ouisiana students deserve a high-quality education, and families deserve a system that allows them to find a school or center that best fits their unique child鈥檚 needs or to evaluate the learning environment of the school or center in which their child is enrolled,鈥� said State Superintendent John White. 鈥淭he Louisiana School Finder makes that possible.鈥�

MLive that officials in Michigan are also working on a platform to help inform parents, and they want feedback, too. The state is working on a new transparency dashboard 鈥� 鈥渁n online tool containing an array of performance indicators for every public school in Michigan鈥� 鈥� and they want input from both parents and residents. State Superintendent Brian Whiston says the developers of the dashboard 鈥渨ant this important school information tool to be understandable, clear, and easy for parents to use,” and encouraged parents to provide input through an .

Also in聽Michigan, The Herald-Palladium that Superintendent Whiston says the state鈥檚 new school benchmarking system is being created both because it was mandated by ESSA and because the 鈥渙ld system wasn鈥檛 working.鈥� Under the new system, state standardized tests will account for only 29 percent of a district鈥檚 score, with the rest broken down as follows: student growth (34 percent), graduation rate (10 percent), English learner success (10 percent), parent participation (3 percent), and other factors, such as chronic absenteeism and art, music, and physical education programs (14 percent).

More ESSA news below:

1 Opting out of the opt-out movement thanks to ESSA

According to Amelia Harper at , the opt-out聽movement 鈥渁ppears to be slowly fading鈥� as states have more of a say over testing under ESSA. In New York, for example, where the 鈥渙pt-out movement has been the strongest,鈥� the opt-out rate has dropped 2 percentage points in just the past year. According to a聽 while 鈥渕ost Americans have heard of the opt-out movement, the majority did not support it and most misunderstood the reason parents opted out,鈥� because those who opt out 鈥� parents who say they are concerned that testing affects their children鈥檚 learning experience and puts too much pressure on teachers who are judged by testing results.鈥�

2听Special education advocates not loving the Empire State

Education Week鈥檚 Alyson Klein that special education advocates 鈥渉ave a message for U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos: Don鈥檛 let New York wiggle out of the Every Student Succeeds Act鈥檚 testing requirements for students with significant cognitive disabilities.鈥� The Empire State鈥檚 ESSA plan, which was submitted to the U.S. Department of Education in September, seeks permission 鈥渢o .鈥� But special education advocates like the an umbrella group composed of more than a dozen advocacy organizations, disagrees 鈥� strongly. They argue that New York鈥檚 request is a violation of ESSA, which says that states 鈥渕ust give all students a test aligned to the standards in the grade in which the student is enrolled.鈥�

3听Brookings Fellow on state plans: Where鈥檚 the research?

Because ESSA asks states to include 鈥渆vidence-based interventions鈥� in their plans to turn around low-performing schools, Brookings Institution fellow Mark Dynarski took some time recently to a sample of state ESSA plans. He found that they 鈥渕ostly ignored research on what works and what doesn鈥檛 work to achieve particular outcomes.鈥� According to Dynarski, while ESSA created opportunities for states to leverage research and evidence in more effective ways, 鈥渕ost of what is in the plans could have been written fifteen years ago.鈥� He concludes that although he expected to 鈥渟ee more concrete ways effectiveness research was or would be used,鈥� instead he found something 鈥渃loser to leaps of faith.鈥�

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