Dive Brief:

• The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s David Griffith, research and policy associate, and Mike Petrilli, president, offer their take on the best accountability system design, given the demands of the Every Student Succeeds Act.
• Writing for Education Next, Griffith and Petrilli say states should assign 10-25% of the summative school rating to indicators of academic achievement, at least 40-50% to indicators of student growth, 10-25% to high school graduation, 10-20% to indicators of student success or school quality, and a variable percentage to indicators of progress toward English language proficiency, based on the population.
• Beyond that, they say states should consider college and career ready indicators, subsequent performance and persistence, students and teacher retention, chronic absenteeism and student surveys.

Dive Insight:

As President-elect Donald Trump staffs his administration and President Barack Obama prepares to vacate the White House, state education officials are working to develop new accountability plans. While the Obama administration has proposed regulations that will govern how states implement the new education law, it will be up to Trump’s administration to enforce them, and policy analysts are already debating which regulations will be scrapped all together.

There is a lot of uncertainty in state capitols as to how much of a role the federal government will actually play in education policy after the changing of the guard. While ESSA sends a lot of power back to the states, California is one of those bracing for a fight over accountability system requirements. In particular, it does not want to assign a summative rating to schools, which the Department of Education could require.