Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Education has released a batch of final regulations to guide state implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, all of which have been amended slightly in response to criticism during the public comment period on the department’s proposed drafts.
• According to the department, key changes from the draft to the final regulations include pushing back implementation of the new accountability systems one year, allowing a data “dashboard” of summative determinations instead of a single school score, and expanding the types of allowable indicators of school quality or student success.
• The final regulations also require states to provide a fuller picture of the implications of its n-size choice, they allow states to set a longer timeframe for identifying consistently underperforming subgroups in schools, they give states more flexibility around incorporating test participation rates into their accountability systems, and they require states to set a research-based maximum timeline for English learners to attain proficiency.

Dive Insight:

California was among the states most concerned with the original plan to require states to give each school a single, summative score. It had moved forward with its own accountability plan that would have run afoul of the regulations, if adopted in their original form, but now the state seems in the clear to proceed with its dashboard of scores.

With President-elect Donald Trump preparing his new team, including proposed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, there is cause to be wary about how long these new regulations will actually last. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on Monday did not say whether he planned to challenge the regulations, but he had previously set himself up for a fight if the department tried to go beyond what he thought the law allowed. District and state leaders, for their part, are aching for a sign of consistency so they can move ahead with their implementation planning.