This Week’s ESSA News: Why Kentucky Is Revamping Its School Accountability System, How California Can Pair Additional Education Funding With More Effective Reporting & More

This update regarding the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the education plans implemented by states and school districts is brought to you in collaboration with ESSA Essentials, an ongoing series from the Collaborative for Student Success. It is a branch of their ESSA Advance newsletter, which you can subscribe to here! (For previous weeks’ ESSA updates, click here.)

In this EdNote article, Molly Sarubbi explores how states can raise awareness and establish relevant policy supports to promote academic success among students. She emphasizes that ESSA includes provisions that encourage collaborative policy development and implementation to address obstacles faced by highly mobile individuals, such as foster youth and homeless students.

Foster care students often experience frequent moves and numerous academic transitions during their K-12 years, which can negatively impact their graduation rates. ESSA tackles this issue by highlighting the importance of minimizing educational disruptions and keeping these children in their original schools whenever it is in their best interest.

Sarubbi acknowledges that implementing these ESSA provisions can be challenging due to the fragmented support system for foster youth. However, some states have managed to overcome structural barriers and enhance support for this population through legislative initiatives in 2019.

Here are some other noteworthy headlines related to ESSA this week:

– Kentucky is revamping its accountability system: According to Olivia Krauth from Insider Louisville, Kentucky’s school accountability system will undergo significant changes following recent legislation. Last year, the state modified its approach to identifying schools in need of additional support in compliance with ESSA. It introduced two labels: Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) and Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI), which identify the bottom 5% of schools and those with underperforming student subgroups, respectively.

– However, there may be further changes to the accountability identifiers, potentially redefining TSI for the fall of 2019 and introducing a third tier of support by fall 2020. While this may result in fewer schools being identified for support, it could also lead to underserved groups being overlooked.

– California is increasing education funding, but how can it be most effective? Aaron Garth Smith examines California’s recent increase in education funding and argues that it must be accompanied by measures to enhance effectiveness. He points out that ESSA requires states to publicly report per-pupil spending at the school-level. To comply with this mandate, California should modernize its reporting system to provide districts, principals, parents, and community stakeholders with the necessary information to make informed decisions. For instance, a report could compare funding levels across schools or highlight the most productive schools in each district by comparing expenditures with outcomes.

– Support for social-emotional learning (SEL) is gaining momentum among educators: According to a recent survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, it is not surprising that support for SEL is growing nationwide. Research shows a link between students’ social and emotional competencies and improvements in academic achievement and other outcomes.

To gain insights into how educators in America are adopting social-emotional learning in schools, the RAND Corporation surveyed over 15,000 K-12 teachers and 3,500 principals. The findings of the survey can be found here.

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