state board
State Board continues to work on federal compliance plan
California’s ongoing efforts to meet federal Every Student Succeeds Act requirements took center stage at the March State Board of Education meeting. Facing a fall deadline for an approved ESSA state plan, State Board members accepted the recommendation of CSBA and other stakeholders and voted to postpone the decision until a special meeting in the month of April.
CSBA advocated for the delay in order to allow a thorough review of the ESSA plan, particularly where the recently modified Title I elements are concerned. Significant Title I federal funding is attached to ESSA compliance — about $3 billion in grants, including money for principal and teacher training and funds for English learners, migrant and homeless children. In addition, changes to Title I could impact the development of a “single federal, state and local accountability plan,” which is a long-held goal of the State Board.

When the board convenes for the special April session, it will consider a number of key issues, including whether to:

  • SBE proposes changes to academic indicators and the way they are weighted
  • Other changes include how to meet federal requirements for reporting current status of schools
Academic Indicators
  • Include 11th-grade test scores along with the grades 3-8 assessment scores currently used as academic indicators.
  • Switch the College and Career indicator from an Academic indicator to an indicator of School Quality or Student Success.
  • Modify the calculation of change for the Graduation Rate indicator to be a one-year difference, like other indicators, and not a three-year average.
  • Require Academic indicators, in the aggregate, to carry much greater weight than School Quality or Student Success.
  • Include 11th-grade test scores along with the grades 3-8 assessment scores currently used as academic indicators.
  • Switch the College and Career indicator from an Academic indicator to an indicator of School Quality or Student Success.
  • Modify the calculation of change for the Graduation Rate indicator to be a one-year difference, like other indicators, and not a three-year average.
  • Require Academic indicators, in the aggregate, to carry much greater weight than School Quality or Student Success.
School Identification
  • Use only the current performance status on both test scores and graduation rates when identifying the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools.
  • Identify the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in a report to the federal government while utilizing the existing color ranking method for providing supports to districts.
English Language Proficiency Indicator
  • Remove scores for reclassified English learners from the calculations, meaning the English learner group will only include active EL students (a decision some think could discourage reclassification as a way to improve performance for this group).
Measurements of Interim Progress
  • Have LEAs include in Local Control and Accountability Plans not only long-term performance goals for academic and graduation rate improvement, but also annual, state-approved interim goals by student group.
N-Size
  • Decide that schools with fewer than 30 students do not receive performance colors. The CDE would be required to review them for performance and identify support needs.

While the SBE sees these proposals as significant concessions, it’s unclear whether they would be enough to pass muster with the U.S. Department of Education. A major hurdle has been the ESSA requirement that states identify strategies to improve the academic achievement of underperforming, low-income schools. But under the Local Control Funding Formula, California’s accountability system — the California School Dashboard — instead focuses on school districts using a range of metrics including graduation rates, college preparedness and school suspension rates.

These color-coded metrics are used to assess overall school performance while ESSA focuses on academic performance. For example, California schools are evaluated on both suspension rates and graduation rates, with schools receiving low marks in two or more categories then identified as needing help. While praising California’s emphasis on local control — a key component of ESSA — U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos also criticized the state’s color-based dashboard, calling it “nearly indecipherable” in March.

The remark was the latest in a series of criticisms of California’s ESSA plan from federal officials. The proposals at the March meeting are intended to address federal requirements under ESSA that use current status only, not status and change, as the Dashboard reports. The Los Angeles Times cited a comment by David Sapp, the state board’s assistant counsel and deputy policy director, who said in an early March conference call with education leaders that California “will maintain the approach we have for the Dashboard, but we’re describing it differently in the federal plan. Performance and growth on test scores, for example, are combined on the Dashboard; but for federal purposes, the state will report them separately.”

As the Board tries to satisfy the demands of the federal government, it was able to reach agreement on three uncontroversial measures:

  • Indicating rates of access to certificated teachers by school site in the LCAP addendum.
  • Including a calendar for approving consistent English Language Acquisition entrance and exit procedures.
  • Including data on homeless youth access to counselors in the LCAP addendum data.

The State Board will next debate the ESSA issues at the special session in April. In the meantime, the SBE has promised to develop sample scenarios that show how the system retains the integrity of the “California Way” while meeting federal demands.