Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to Louisiana officials, warning them that a state law creating alternative paths for special education students to complete high school may be in violation of federal law.
• Under the Louisiana bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal in July, special education students work with an advisory team to create a plan, along with goals for graduation, that doesn't necessarily take into account standardized test scores.
• The letter from the US Department of Education explains concerns that "Louisiana’s Act 833 may permit IEP teams to set lower standards for promotion and graduation for students with disabilities." With uncertainty about the law, some districts have been cautious about implementing the new program, which was supposed to start this school year.

Dive Insight:

The White House's response to Louisiana's law is not too surprising. When Jindal signed the bill into law, the Boston-based Center for Law and Education and the District of Columbia's Advocacy Institute both took issue with the law and the amount of power the plan gives to the IEP advisory teams. Chief among the concerns: that teams could now create lower standards and artificially inflate the state's graduation rates. If every team is responsible for creating individual goals for graduation, it will be hard to do a true check to make sure the set goals are reasonable and still rigorous.

That said, aren't individualized learning goals what many decision-makers keep saying they want in education? Additionally, saying graduation should only be tied to standardized test scores is a very narrow view of what it means to be educated or successful. Finding a middle ground where individual goals can be created and some sort of standardization persists seems to be the desired outcome. What that looks like is still unclear.