Understanding Where Students Stand Academically Is Critical to COVID-19 Recovery

Teachers, parents, policymakers, and advocates all need a complete and consistent picture of how students fared during disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Annual statewide assessments are critical to providing meaningful data on student learning because the results help inform instruction, plan for recovery, and strategically allocate constrained budgets and new federal relief funds. Learn more about why leading national civil rights and education organizations are supporting the use of student assessment data this spring here:

Supporting State Assessment Amid A Pandemic: A Q&A With National Test Vendors

Recently, the Collaborative for Student Success and EducationCounsel spoke with representatives from major statewide summative assessment vendors to learn more about how they are supporting states and reducing burden on educators as they seek to administer assessments in spring 2021.

NEW: Experts Find Promising Reopening Actions By Districts

A panel of experts in school leadership, health & safety, and emergency planning present the most promising, replicable actions taken by districts in their reopening and recovery plans, with considerations for restarting academics, building supports for staff, students, and parents, increasing access to connectivity and technology, and effectively using student data.

Collaborative Joins 18 Organizations to Send Letter to Secretary DeVos on Keeping 2020-21 Assessments in Place

The Collaborative joined with 18 education, advocacy, civil rights and business organizations, including the Data Quality Campaign, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Urban League in sending a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and members of the Senate and House education committees urging federal authorities to not grant testing waivers in the upcoming school year.

Collaborative for Student Success Releases Memo Highlighting Strong Support for Annual Assessments

In response to several states prematurely moving to suspend using annual summative assessments—one of the primary tools they have to understand where students stand on their path to success and how to adjust the system to meet their needs – the Collaborative released a memo to underscore strong public support for using quality assessment data to inform back to school efforts.

Assessment HQ Event Series Explores How to Best Measure Learning Loss during COVID-19

And that’s a wrap! We’re happy to report that our Assessment HQ event series was a success! To assist experts and policymakers in starting conversations around learning loss amid school closures, the Collaborative for Student Success hosted a series of discussions on Assessment HQ focusing on the “COVID slide” and the role of assessments in gauging where students stand in these unprecedented times.

National and State Organizations Call for Equity and Transparency in CARES Act Education Funds

On March 31, 2020, the Collaborative for Student Success joined 11 education and civil rights organizations in calling on Secretary DeVos and the Department of Education to ensure that funding included in the recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act reaches students with the highest need.

For more information, and to read the letter in full, click the button below.

ESSA Turns 4 Summit

On December 10, 2019, Collaborative for Student Success hosted an afternoon Summit with thoughtful discussion on implementation of the Every Student Succeed Act. Co-hosted with Education Week and moderated by Alyson Klein, Evie Blad, Andrew Ujifusa, and Daarel Burnette, the event featured conversations with ESSA’s congressional authors, plus discussions on equity and school improvement, accountability and testing, school finance data, and the Military Student Identifier.

More information and resources will be forthcoming, but be sure to check out a recap of the day on Capitol Hill.

Faltering Reading Results from Latest NAEP Release Spur Action

Last month, there was disappointing news in the education world. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) release showed a decrease across 17 states in 4th-grade reading and 31 states in 8th grade reading as well as a widening of the achievement gap over the last decade between the highest performing and lowest-performing students. In efforts to improve conditions for mastering reading, Collaborative for Student Success announced a collective effort with 11 organizations representing the education and civil rights communities to address the NAEP reading outcomes.

A new tool for student proficiency data

Assessment HQ is a unique online platform that takes the guesswork and risk of misinformation out of state annual assessments by providing transparency on student proficiency and state testing decisions. For the first time, student proficiency data for more than half of states in grades 3-8 will be publicly available online, and in one location, for anyone to view and use.

How are states addressing the needs of their lowest-performing schools?

We partnered with HCM Strategists to find out how states were approaching school improvement.

See how your state measures up

The Check State Plans project is based on the belief that states need to embrace the flexibility ESSA offers them, and that their plans should implement strong state-level accountability systems. See what’s in your state’s plan.