麻豆精品

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 麻豆精品 Newsletter

The 2021-22 school year is nearly half over and some state officials say they鈥檙e still waiting for guidance from the U.S. Department of Education on how to restart the process of identifying schools most in need of assistance and setting expectations for how they should improve.

Though assessment issues came up last week in a conversation with state superintendents at a Council of Chief State School Officers policy forum, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona didn鈥檛 address a burning question for many state officials 鈥� how to meet the accountability requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act after two years of testing disruptions.

鈥淚n some cases we simply don鈥檛 have the data to calculate accountability scores using normal business rules,鈥� said Georgia Department of Education spokeswoman Meghan Frick. 鈥淭hat will necessitate some adjustments.鈥�

State assessments were cancelled in 2020. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education waived the requirement that states test 95 percent of students. And in both years, states were exempted from publicly sharing which schools did not meet standards and how officials planned to turn them around. Some leaders and experts seized on the pause in testing and accountability as an opportunity to rethink the role of standardized assessments in determining school quality. But education advocates and think tanks argue that the disruption in learning due to the pandemic makes it even more important to identify and get help to schools that need it most. 

鈥淭here鈥檚 still no clarity from the feds about how they expect testing to proceed 鈥� or not 鈥� in spring 2022,鈥� said Dale Chu, a senior visiting fellow with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. 鈥淚t鈥檚 worrisome.鈥�

The department did not respond to requests for a comment.

Experts said they don鈥檛 expect the department to issue any more testing-related waivers. Dan Farley, the Oregon Department of Education鈥檚 director of assessment, said he鈥檚 鈥渁waiting guidance regarding accountability that will largely maintain prior expectations鈥�  in place before the pandemic.

Under the law, states are required to test students in reading, math and science. They must share the results on state report cards and identify the schools that score in the bottom 5 percent in the state as well as those in which a demographic group, such as Black students or English learners, consistently performs poorly. States then have to get those schools headed in the right direction, using strategies that can range from hiring consultants to replacing teachers and administrators.

But even if states resume testing 95 percent of students this year, as federal law requires, some officials still wonder how states will measure school improvement since the 2018-19 school year. In some states last year, large proportions of parents opted their children out of testing or students didn鈥檛 take tests because they were still in remote learning. 

In South Carolina, test participation during the 2020-21 school year fell to 87 percent, compared to 99 percent before the pandemic, according to Ryan Brown, spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Education.

The missing data, he said, impacts the scores schools receive for showing improvement over multiple years. And if high school students didn鈥檛 take the ACT, SAT or the state鈥檚 career readiness assessment, it will be hard to calculate how well schools have prepared students for college or the workforce.

鈥淲e would be looking for guidance and flexibility from the U.S. Department of Education in this area,鈥� he said.

But leaders in states that retained high test participation feel more confident about resuming accountability.

North Dakota had a 97 percent testing participation rate last year. The state education department even sent letters to the top-performing schools and to those scoring at the bottom to let them know where they would fall on the state鈥檚 accountability system had it been in effect, Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said in an interview after last week鈥檚 event.

Baesler said she felt it would have been irresponsible not to share that information with local leaders. She didn鈥檛 want schools to have a 鈥渇alse sense of accomplishment,鈥� she said. 

鈥淚 think people assumed that because we were in person most of this school year, that we were fine,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 still chaos in our students鈥� lives and in our teachers鈥� lives.鈥�

She鈥檚 also among those state leaders who want to see a new approach to assessment. At the state superintendents鈥� gathering last week, she asked Cardona how states can 鈥渕easure what we say we really value.鈥� 

鈥淲e鈥檙e committed to assessing the whole student,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut we still have an assessment system that is measuring basic foundational knowledge.鈥�

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 麻豆精品鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.