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K-12 Dive
States move to suspend school report cards, create accountability flexibilities
Naaz Modan
Jan. 6, 2021
Dive Brief:
Taking advantage of flexibilities allowed by the U.S. Department of
Education this school year, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Tennessee and
other states have moved to suspend school accountability report cards
or waive or reduce the weight of certain accountability measures, like
assessments, for the 2020-21 school year.
While the National Assessment of Educational Progress has been
postponed until 2022, state assessments are still continuing in many
places with added flexibilities. States suspending report cards or
putting in place flexibilities for accountability cited the need to
have supports for struggling schools and students with the aid of
assessment results, while detangling those results from penalties.
The decisions come after U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told
states in September the Education Department would be open to
rethinking assessments and accountability measures in the wake of
ongoing COVID-19 disruptions.
Dive Insight:
At the start of the 2020-21 school year, some states hoped the U.S.
Department of Education would grant another round of national
assessment and accountability waivers due to the novel coronavirus
pandemic. State leaders have expressed concerns that moving forward
with standardized testing would be "counterproductive" or take away
from much-needed instruction time and positive school culture.
However, in a letter sent to states in September, DeVos made it clear
states would be expected to administer summative assessments this
school year. She also encouraged state leaders to "rethink
assessments," calling it the "perfect time" to do so, and suggested the
department would be open to consider flexibilities for states'
accountability metrics.
The accountability addenda deadline for states was previously set for
February 2021. In November, leaders told K-12 Dive they expected other
areas of accountability like school designations and timelines to also
be impacted by the addenda, with previous designations rolling over one
year and timelines shifting.
Among concerns influencing these decisions is a lack of consistent and complete data.
“So the question for some states is probably, 'How do we know if
they’ve improved if we don’t have the same data to look at?'” Maria
Harris, deputy superintendent of assessment and accountability for the
Oklahoma State Department of Education, told K-12 Dive previously.
Even for interim assessments, which most states are administering this
year to identify learning losses, testing experts have expressed the
possibility of results being skewed.To mitigate that concern in
standardized testing, some are hoping to administer state tests in
person this year.
Still, schools face an uphill battle in reaching students who are
either demotivated or not showing up. And state leaders seem to be
taking that into consideration while making policy decisions around
state report cards and accountability.
However, states previously told K-12 Dive they would be making
assessment data and other performance information available to district
leaders through secure portals or other means, hoping it will inform
instruction.
“Our priority is to now provide schools with as much information as we
can on how students may have been impacted when compared to grade-level
expectations, with an emphasis on the impact to students most at risk
of falling behind academically," said Joy Hofmeister, Oklahoma's state
superintendent of public instruction, in a statement.
While states are making changes specific to the 2020-21 school year, it
is possible for shifting attitudes toward high-stakes assessments and
accountability to outlast the pandemic.
“[With COVID-19], our real focus is about how we can use assessment and
accountability to drive instructional decisions in the classroom,” Lane
Carr, Nebraska's state education department's director of
accountability, told K-12 Dive in November. “That was always our vision
pre-pandemic, and now it has to be [like that] this year — well why
can’t it be that way all the time?”
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