This Week’s ESSA News: Science Test Debate, a Career Readiness Blind Spot, and Massachusetts Has Work to Do

But some lawmakers aren’t so happy. Sen. Lamar Alexander, one of the main authors of the Every Student Succeeds Act, argued that acting assistant secretary Jason Botel “hasn’t read the law carefully.” In his comments, the Tennessee Republican, himself a former education secretary, maintained his support for local control, telling Education Week that “The heart of the entire law … was that it’s the state’s decision to set goals, to decide what ‘ambitious’ means, to make decisions to help schools that aren’t performing well.”

Ryan Reyna, a senior associate at Education Strategy Group and a recent peer reviewer, argued that the department “stumbled out of the gate with respect to their initial review of the Delaware, Nevada, and New Mexico ESSA state plans.” Reyna noted that feedback lacked internal consistency and that this leaves states “in the lurch.”

Here are the week’s other top developments:

---

---

Trump Ed. Dept.: High-Achieving Massachusetts Has Some ESSA Work to Do https://t.co/PdEYaE23Lg #edpolitics

— Politics K-12 (@PoliticsK12) July 10, 2017

---

2. What if states want to use science assessments?

   Much of the debate over this stemmed from criticism over the way states want to integrate science tests into their accountability systems, so Education Week examined how states can use these other assessments under ESSA. Alyson Klein clarifies that “states can use science test scores to judge both kinds of schools,” meaning elementary/middle schools and high schools, but “they need to meet certain requirements.” So far, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other states can do it, but they must be used as an “indicator of school quality and student success, or as the second academic indicator for elementary and middle schools.”

---

.@educationweek examined how states can use science, social studies, & the arts as accountability measures: https://t.co/dooW1AKJ88 #ESSA

— ESSA Updates (@ESSA_Update) July 12, 2017

---

3. States are missing an opportunity to address career readiness

   Advance CTE and the Education Strategy Group examined state ESSA plans for mentions of career readiness. And what they found was disappointing. While more than half plan to adopt measures of career readiness in their accountability systems, several states “missed an opportunity to fully leverage ESSA to advance a statewide vision of career readiness.”

---

New @CTEWorks study looks at what states are doing to build #career readiness into their #ESSA plans: https://t.co/1qoZJOyK4D

— Achieve (@AchieveInc) July 11, 2017

---

4. How do long-term research-practice partnerships fit into ESSA?

   ESSA asks schools, districts, and states to select “evidence-based programs” for its plans. So, the University of Colorado’s Bill Penuel and Caitlin C. Farrell took a look at “a number of scenarios where long-term research-practice partnerships (RPPs) have helped districts select, adapt, and design evidence-based programs.”

   They note that these partnerships are “long-term, mutually beneficial relationships between practitioners and researchers around problems of practice.” Two strong examples they cite are the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research’s work with Illinois to support the implementation of a “fifth indicator” for school accountability, describing it as being “in many ways ahead of other states,” and the contribution the Tennessee Education Research Alliance has made to that state’s ESSA plan.

---

An opportunity for research-practice partnerships to support districts and states @bpenuel @ccfarrell https://t.co/78UrywXyJ6

— NEPC (@NEPCtweet) July 7, 2017