Dive Brief:

• The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is in the middle of deciding which factors to use when judging school quality under the Every Student Succeeds Act, and while it wants to expand beyond standardized testing, state officials aren’t sure by how much.
• The Boston Globe reports State Commissioner Mitchell Chester wants to avoid adding too many indicators and creating extra noise that parents won’t be able to understand — but he doesn’t expect a radical shift from the current system, which considers test scores and graduation rates.
• Other indicators the state is considering include student discipline data, family engagement, college completion rates, teacher turnover, student attrition, ninth-grade pass rates, average class size, chronic absenteeism, access to recess, foreign-language acquisition rates, teacher turnover and student grit.

Dive Insight:

Every state in the nation has to come up with a new accountability system for judging its schools because of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Many states, like Massachusetts, will likely suggest tweaks. California, however, has taken the opportunity to overhaul its system. It will consider standardized test scores, graduation and suspension rates, college and career readiness, progress toward proficiency for English learners, school climate and parent involvement. It plans to report these metrics to parents using a dashboard so they can see where their school is doing particularly well or poorly.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recommends incorporating indicators of academic achievement, student growth, high school graduation, student success or school quality, and progress toward proficiency for English learners as the core of an accountability system with additional consideration to college and career readiness, alumni performance and persistence, student and teacher retention, chronic absenteeism and student surveys.