February 22, 2021
Good evening,
Late this afternoon the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to the chief state school officers “inviting states to request a waiver for the 2020-2021 school year of the accountability and school identification requirements in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). A state receiving this waiver would not be required to implement and report the results of its accountability system, including calculating progress toward long-term goals and measurements of interim progress or indicators, or to annually meaningfully differentiate among its public schools using data from the 2020-2021 school year.” This policy concerning accountability and school identification is in alignment with the National School Boards Association (NSBA) transition recommendations that stated: “The U.S. Department of Education should grant temporary waivers from the accountability requirements in the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2021 due to the difficulties that have arisen from COVID-19.”
The letter also addresses assessments. Noting that assessments can provide important information concerning learning, it recognizes the difficulty some schools will have in providing assessments during the pandemic and gives states flexibility and guidance on the issue. There are also sections in the letter addressing transparency and public reporting.
NSBA will continue to monitor this issue and provide updates as we learn them. A copy of the letter text is attached to this email.
Thanks,
Chip
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Chip Slaven
Chief Advocacy Officer
National School Boards Association
Alexandria, VA
Read full letter below, or download letter here: U.S. Department of Education Letter on Assessment, Accountability, and Reporting Requirements for School Year 2020-2021
February 22, 2021
Dear Chief State School Officer:
In these challenging times, we at the U.S. Department of Education stand with you and are
committed to doing everything in our power to support the students, educators, and schools in
your state. Please know that we are grateful for your leadership and for the extraordinary work
of educators across the Nation.
I am writing to provide an update on assessment, accountability, and reporting requirements for
the 2020-2021 school year. President Biden’s first priority is to safely re-open schools and get
students back in classrooms, learning face-to-face from teachers with their fellow students. To
be successful once schools have re-opened, we need to understand the impact COVID-19 has
had on learning and identify what resources and supports students need. We must also
specifically be prepared to address the educational inequities that have been exacerbated by the
pandemic, including by using student learning data to enable states, school districts, and schools
to target resources and supports to the students with the greatest needs. In addition, parents need
information on how their children are doing.
State assessment and accountability systems play an important role in advancing educational
equity. At the same time, it is clear that the pandemic requires significant flexibility for the
2020-2021 school year so that states can respond to the unique circumstances they are facing;
keep students, staff, and their families safe; and maintain their immediate focus on supporting
students’ social, emotional, and academic development.
We remain committed to supporting all states in assessing the learning of all students. The
Department is, therefore, offering the following flexibility with respect to your assessment,
accountability, and reporting systems for the 2020-2021 school year:
• Accountability and School Identification. We are inviting states to request a waiver for
the 2020-2021 school year of the accountability and school identification requirements in
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). A state receiving this
waiver would not be required to implement and report the results of its accountability
system, including calculating progress toward long-term goals and measurements of
interim progress or indicators, or to annually meaningfully differentiate among its public
schools using data from the 2020-2021 school year. This flexibility would explicitly
include waiving the requirement that the Academic Achievement indicator be adjusted to
account for a participation rate below 95 percent. The state would also not be required to
identify schools for comprehensive support and improvement (CSI), targeted support and
improvement (TSI), and additional targeted support and improvement (ATSI) based on
data from the 2020-2021 school year. Each state that receives the accountability and
school identification waivers would be required to continue to support previously
identified schools in the 2021-2022 school year, resume school identification in the fall of
2022, and ensure transparency to parents and the public, as described below, including
publicly reporting the percentage of students not assessed, disaggregated by student
subgroup. The Department will follow up shortly with an optional state accountability
waiver template. Beyond the scope of these waivers, we also encourage states and school
districts to consider other steps within your purview to further reduce the stakes of
assessments this year, such as excluding their use from students’ final grades and grade
promotion decisions.
• Transparency and Public Reporting. It remains vitally important that parents,
educators, and the public have access to data on student learning and success. The
Department will therefore maintain all state and local report card requirements, including
the requirements to disaggregate data by student subgroup (except for reporting related to
accountability, such as school ratings). As a condition of waiving accountability and
school identification requirements, the Department will require all states to publicly
report disaggregated chronic absenteeism data and, to the extent the state or school
district already collects such information, data on student and educator access to
technology devices like laptops or tablets and to high-speed internet at
home. Transparency on opportunity to learn measures, such as chronic absenteeism and
access to key resources like technology, can help inform decisions about student supports
for the 2021-2022 school year and beyond.
• Assessments. It is urgent to understand the impact of COVID-19 on learning. We know,
however, that some schools and school districts may face circumstances in which they are
not able to safely administer statewide summative assessments this spring using their
standard practices. Certainly, we do not believe that if there are places where students
are unable to attend school safely in person because of the pandemic that they should be
brought into school buildings for the sole purpose of taking a test.
We emphasize the importance of flexibility in the administration of statewide
assessments. A state should use that flexibility to consider:
o Administering a shortened version of its statewide assessments;
o Offering remote administration, where feasible; and/or
o Extending the testing window to the greatest extent practicable. That could
include offering multiple testing windows and/or extending the testing window
into the summer or even the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. States that
elect to extend testing windows should also consider how they can make results
available to the public in a timely manner after assessments are administered.
In particular, we know that English language proficiency (ELP) assessments are often
given earlier in the school year than content assessments and are underway already in
most states. We specifically encourage states to extend the testing window for their ELP
assessment, including beyond the end of the 2020-2021 school year, if necessary, to
ensure that districts are administering this assessment when it safe for them to do so.
The intent of these flexibilities, and the accountability waivers described above, is to
focus on assessments to provide information to parents, educators, and the public about
student performance and to help target resources and supports. For that reason, we are
not inviting blanket waivers of assessments. We also recognize that individual states may
need additional assessment flexibility based on the specific circumstances across or
within the state, and we will work with states to address their individual needs and
conditions while ensuring the maximum available statewide data to inform the targeting
of resources and supports.
If a request for a waiver is appropriate, prior to submitting a waiver request (including through
the optional template described above), as required under ESEA section 8401(b)(3)(A), you must
provide the public and interested local educational agencies notice and a reasonable time for
them to comment in the manner in which the state educational agency customarily provides
notice and the opportunity to comment to the public.
If you have any questions, please contact OESE.Titlei-a@ed.gov.
Sincerely,
Ian Rosenblum
Delegated the Authority to Perform the Functions and Duties of the Assistant Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
cc: Governors
State Title I Directors
State Title III Directors
State Special Education Directors
State Assessment Directors
