Request Seeks Equitable, Innovative Path Forward
Contact: Josh Parrish, jparrish@forstudentsuccess.org
WASHINGTON – A group of 15 civil rights, business, and education advocacy organizations asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona today to detail the administration’s plans for resuming state assessment and school improvement requirements set by federal law and that were largely paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organizations specifically asked for Department plans to ensure states administer high-quality assessments this school year that empower accountability systems to identify schools in need of support.
There is an opportunity to learn from the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic to inform new assessment policies and designs, the organizations wrote in a letter to Cardona that spells out the requests. Recognizing that the nation’s underserved students, who already faced inadequate and inequitable access to resources and opportunities, have “struggled academically, socially, and emotionally over the past year,” they cite the need for data to better understand where they stand academically.
Without action on the issue, the organizations say they fear that the potential loss of education data provided by state assessments “may result in a return to the days when inequitable outcomes for students of color, English learners, students with disabilities, and students from low-income backgrounds were easily swept under the rug.”
“Our students, educators, and families deserve a thoughtful conversation about assessment policy and practice, and how we can surface better, more useful testing tools across our education system,” the organizations wrote. “Both proponents and opponents of our current testing system want educational assessments that can better guide decision-making and better inform classroom instruction and student progress.”
The ultimate goal is to foster a thoughtful, national dialogue on the future of comprehensive assessment systems that meet the needs of educators, parents, students, and policymakers alike. The groups say this is not the time to open up the Every Student Succeeds Act to rethink the strong assessment requirements of the law, but they do acknowledge a desire from diverse stakeholders across the country to consider new types of assessment systems and designs.
To view or download the letter, click here.