Schools Matter: ESSA: Vermont State Board of Ed Letter to John B. King

Schools Matter: ESSA: Vermont State Board of Ed Letter to John B. King:

Schools Matter: ESSA: Vermont State Board of Ed Letter to John B. King



 Vermont State Board of Education
219 North Main Street, Suite 402
Barre, VT 05641

July 2016

John B. King, Jr., Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202

Re: Comments on Proposed Rules and Regulations

Dear Secretary King,

The Vermont State Board of Education thanks you for the opportunity to respond to the ESSA
proposed rules. Our Board is proud to represent a state where the people support a strong state
funding system, enjoy schools that foster high student performance and register narrow equity
gaps as compared with the nation. Nevertheless, the opportunity gap is our most pressing
concern and is the number one goal in our strategic plan.

With these traditions and values in mind, we have strong concerns and reservations about
ESSA. Fundamentally, if we are to close the achievement gap, it is imperative that we
substantively address the underlying economic and social disparities that characterize our
nation, our communities and our schools. With two-thirds of the score variance attributable to
outside of school factors, test scores gaps measure the health of our society more than the
quality of the schools.

Consequently, the continuation of a test-based, labeling and “assistance” model (broadly seen
as punishment) has not only proven ineffective, but has had a corrosive effect on the confidence
of the people. The encouragement of privatization has been harmful to local democracy, has
further segregated a too fragmented nation and has diluted rather than focused valuable
resources.

Regarding the draft regulations, we think they go well beyond the role of the federal
government as specified in ESSA. The regulations need to be brought into conformity with the
parameters authorized in law.

We share comments on several specific elements of law and rule:

Education and Accountability is More Than Test Scores: The Narrowness of the Measures – The plan relies on what we can easily measure, rather than on what is important. By requiring that test scores in two subjects and graduation rates be given preferential weight, we discourage schools from supporting truly broad opportunities to learn and the skills necessary for a healthy society. In a world where violence and terrorism command the news, the education of our youth to participate in a Schools Matter: ESSA: Vermont State Board of Ed Letter to John B. King:

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Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys through "No Excuses" Teaching

CURMUDGUCATION: King's No Excuses

CURMUDGUCATION: King's No Excuses:

King's No Excuses

Well, of course it was about no excuses for the students. That as pretty much the whole point. It's the kind of setting Those People need. "We don't a care if you're poor or dyslexic or homeless or just plain not very bright. We are going to demand that you succeed." That's what Those Children need, and it's what No Excuses schools have always promised and demanded. So the first part of this quote is baloney, one more attempt to revise history and avoid having to defend the indefensible.

No excuses for educators has certainly part of the landscape, with teachers and principals have been told, from the first days of No Child Left Behind, that no excuses would free them from the punishment that will be meted out for those students who don't get above-average test scores.

Who gets all excuses? Elected officials and education bureaucrats. Does a school have too few resources, old materials, crumbling building problems? Then clearly the school is to blame. The teachers are at fault for not getting their students to pass the Big Standardized Test-- if they had done that, the school would no longer be poor, or something like that. 

But the legislators fail to get schools the resources they need (or even actively oppose such a thing)-- those guys get all the excuses they want. Are there stupid laws getting in the school's way? That's not the lawmakers' fault. Is the school chronically underfunded? That's not the legislature's fault. Are schools stuck in a morass of foolish rules and regulations because the feds laid down the law? Is there an expensive mess that erupted from the federal force-feeding of CURMUDGUCATION: King's No Excuses:

Big Education Ape: Judge calls evaluation of N.Y. teacher ‘arbitrary’ and ‘capricious’ in case against new U.S. secretary of education - The Washington Post -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/05/judge-calls-evaluation-of-ny-teacher.html

Stop trying to reform the reforms; adopt an education philosophy centered on black and brown people

Stop trying to reform the reforms; adopt an education philosophy centered on black and brown people:

Stop trying to reform the reforms; adopt an education philosophy centered on black and brown people
A system rooted in those who need change the most

The scant mention of Democrats’ official platform on K-12 education on the main stage at the Democratic National Convention last week was clearly a political effort to distance the party from the fray.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has backed off many hallmarks of the accountability era that started with the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001 under the first George W. Bush administration and ended when that law was replaced with the Every Student Succeeds Act last year. Many approaches, like teacher evaluation, simply did not work and caused irreparable harm to teachers and children. Others, like charter expansion and school closures, did not live up to the promise Clinton hoped for.

In 2014, Bill Clinton forecast his wife’s evolution when he said that charter schools have not held up their “original bargain.” Hillary Clinton the following year doubled down on her husband’s remarks,stating, “Most charter schools … don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids. And if they do, they don’t keep them.” Leading up to the DNC, reform-friendly language was scrubbed from the official platform. And Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in her remarks at the DNC (pdf) that Hillary Clinton will “reset education policy to focus on skills like creativity and critical thinking, not more testing.”Stop trying to reform the reforms; adopt an education philosophy centered on black and brown people: 

John Thompson: Educators Can’t Afford Another Eight Years of Demonization by DFER | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Educators Can’t Afford Another Eight Years of Demonization by DFER | Diane Ravitch's blog:

John Thompson: Educators Can’t Afford Another Eight Years of Demonization by DFER

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, writes here about the conflict between Democrats for Education Reform and educators and how it might affect the next administration. It is to be expected that the misnamed DFER would achieve its policy goals in a Trump administration: charters, school choice, the elimination of teacher tenure and unions. But what about in a Clinton administration? Why should an anti-teacher, anti-public school group have a “seat at the table”?

Teachers and our unions are uniquely poised to help unite the Democratic Party. Not only do educators celebrate the difference of opinions, but it’s our job to do so in a respectful manner. Our professional practice embodies the need to listen, to disagree agreeably and, often, help synthesize seemingly incompatible perspectives. Not only do we model the sharing of ideas in the classroom, our edu-political practice illustrates the type of democratic principles known as the “loyal opposition.” Teachers and our unions defend our profession and promote the welfare of our students by treating our opponents as opponents, not enemies.

My students were more socially conservative than I was. They were aware that I was a former ACLU/OK board member and a pro-choice lobbyist, but they knew that all of their opinions, values, and judgments would be treated with equal respect. They also knew how much I preferred addressing persons who disagreed with me on abortion with the term, “pro-life,” not “anti-choice.” Teaching our Government class with an open door produced a bonus. Students, patrons, or other visitors continually joined our debates. Often, parents would send their children back to school with their counter-arguments about politics, culture, and history. One junior brought his pastor to class to present an alternative worldview, and he concluded with the words, “We can count the seeds in an apple, but not the apples in a seed.”

The metaphor speaks to the Democratic Party Convention. We can count Bernie’s delegates, but we can’t even guess as to the number of future voters and activists unleashed by “the Bern.” In the meantime, we should unite behind Hillary.

And, that brings us to the second contribution that teachers, our John Thompson: Educators Can’t Afford Another Eight Years of Demonization by DFER | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir? - Lily's Blackboard

Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir? - Lily's Blackboard:

Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?

 At the McCarthy hearings that history shows were constructed to raise fear and suspicion for political gain;where neighbor testified against neighbor; where accusations flew like feathers before a fan that based on nothing but hear-say, frightened and bullied witnesses were traitors; infiltrators; untrustworthy; un-American… well, in the midst of our dark hour, a Republican, a hero emerged to say, “Enough.”

“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” said Joseph Welch, counsel for the U.S. Army while it was being investigated by Joe McCarthy’s senate committee for communist activities. In open hearing and without warning, McCarthy accused a young lawyer working with Welch of communist ties because of a club he’d belonged to years before. Feeling ambushed, Welch refused to answer any further questions about his young colleague.

When McCarthy kept pressing the accusation that the young man was a communist, Welch interrupted, saying, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad… If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.”

When he finished, the room burst into applause. That truth telling and that applause was the beginning of the end of the McCarthy witch-hunts.

On Monday, billionaire Warren Buffet was introducing Hillary Clinton. He echoed Joseph Welch, saying, “I ask Donald Trump: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?‘”

Such is the world we have come to. A man who claims he will ‘make America great again’ is taking us all backward to a time when shameless people with power did shameful things to innocent, powerless people. All the world has now heard of the stirring words of Khizr Khan and seen the pain of his wife, Ghazala, who appeared at the Democratic Convention. Mrs. Khan is still too heartbroken to speak without breaking down, and so her husband spoke of his listening to one of the two people in the entire world who will be the next president of the United States.

They heard Donald Trump, as did we all, say that the answer to stopping radical Islamic terrorist attacks was, “A complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

Mr. Khan and his wife were at the Democratic Convention to bear witness to two things: one – that their young, Muslim son, Captain Humayun Khan, was killed by a car bomb while protecting his U.S. troops in Iraq earning a posthumous Bronze Star and Purple Heart. And two – that as an American soldier, their son died protecting the U.S. Constitution and his country. Who wouldn’t demand Trump repudiate his unconstitutional call to ban all Muslims as if you should be treated as a terrorist because of your religion? Who wouldn’t question whether or not Trump had ever read the Constitution their heroic son died for?

You’ve seen Trump’s reaction to this brave family.

About the soldier’s mother, he said:Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir? - Lily's Blackboard:

Charter accountability comes back before lawmakers :: SI&A Cabinet Report

Charter accountability comes back before lawmakers :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Charter accountability comes back before lawmakers

(Calif.) The still-lingering tension between traditional public schools and their counterparts in the charter movement will once again draw the legislative spotlight in a hearing scheduled today to consider charter accountability issues.

The hearing comes just one day after public-interest attorneys released a damaging report that found one in five charter schools statewide have screening policies that violate state laws requiring charters to admit any student as long as there is room.

Although there does not appear to be any coordination between the two events, the fact that one directly follows the other illustrates that there remain concerns over how much freedom and flexibility charters should have—even 24 years after the first one was established in California.

“All the accountability measures that we have for traditional public schools to ensure that they are meeting the needs of our students, particularly our most vulnerable—should apply to all schools that receive public funds,” said Rigel Massaro, staff attorney with Public Advocates, an organization that shared the byline for Monday’s critical charter report with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

This very question is one of several that will be taken up Wednesday in Sacramento by the state Senate’s education committee in an agenda that includes a discussion over how charters are authorized and regulation of online charter schools.

Colin Miller, senior policy advisor at the California Charter Schools Association said his group is not opposed to greater oversight, especially when it comes to the role of authorizing districts.

“I think over the past few years there’s been a lot of questions about authorizing practices that are not always in the best interest of students,” he said. “We’re also concerned about the renewal process, where some charters that are not performing well are reauthorized, and some higher performing charters are not.”

Miller said that earlier this year, the charter school association sponsored legislation that would have revised a number of policies related to charter authorization. The bill failed to advance.

“We’d hoped it would help start this conversation,” Miller said.

California lawmakers were among the first in the nation to approve public funding of charter schools, and the state has since emerged as the national leader in the total number of charters and the number of students they educate. But there has been a significant growth spurt just in the past decade, with the number of charter schools growing from 560 in 2006 to 1,207 this year, and the number of students enrolled 10 years ago going from 200,000 to more than 550,000 today, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Some defenders of traditional schools had hoped that Gov. Jerry Brown would temper the growth of charters, which had enjoyed strong support from Brown’s Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Brown, who helped found a pair of charters while mayor of Oakland, has proven to be an even bigger advocate.

Still, a review of bills still pending before the Legislature shows a number that is aimed at putting Charter accountability comes back before lawmakers :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

All Things Education: It's not the science that is junk, it's the measures

All Things Education: It's not the science that is junk, it's the measures:

It's not the science that is junk, it's the measures

So I recently had occasion to read a whole bunch of studies on charter schools and one type I read was about their effectiveness. I read the CREDO studies and I read critiques of the CREDO studies and I read meta-analyses and I read smaller studies.

Anyway, I want to go back to something I used to say and that I have heard others who are similarly skeptical of Big Ed Reform, and that is the notion of "junk science." A lot of us have called VAM and have called other studies of educational effectiveness "junk science." I know I did, indignantly. But you know what? I didn't really know what I was saying. (This is one reason I went back to get my PhD, so I would have more understanding of these kinds of things.)

And I was reading all of these studies on the effectiveness of charter schools, I remembered reading this post by Matt DiCarlo on the Shanker Blog from over 3 years ago. I remembered that reading it gave me pause about calling what I did "junk science" and I ceased doing so, but even so, I couldn't fully relate to what he was saying:

Now, I personally am not opposed to using these estimates in evaluations and other personnel policies, but I certainly understand opponents’ skepticism. For one thing, there are some states and districts in which design and implementation has been somewhat careless, and, in these situations, I very much share the skepticism. Moreover, the common argument that evaluations, in order to be "meaningful," must consist of value-added measures in a heavily-weighted role (e.g., 45-50 percent) is, in my view, unsupportable. 

All that said, calling value-added “junk science” completely obscures the important issues. The real questions here are less about the merits of the models per se than how they're being used. 

If value-added is “junk science” regardless of how it's employed, then a fairly large chunk of social scientific research is “junk science." If that’s your opinion, then okay – you’re entitled to it – but it’s not All Things Education: It's not the science that is junk, it's the measures:

Schools Matter: HILLARY AND HEWLETT PACKARD

Schools Matter: HILLARY AND HEWLETT PACKARD:

HILLARY AND HEWLETT PACKARD

By Doug Martin, Author of Hoosier School Heist

Hillary Clinton’s campaign for chief of America continues to get backing by those in the school privatization business.

Hewlett Packard’s Meg Whitman--a Republican fundraiser whose net worth is $1.95 billion--has recently come out in support of Hillary and says she will donate “substantial” money to Clinton’s campaign.

Whitman in 2014 was appointed to Teach for America's board, alongside Bill Clinton's bank deregulator Larry Summers, one of the people responsible for the financial crisis of 2008 which bailed out the billionaires and kicked poor Americans out of their homes.

Whitman’s Whitman-Harsh Family Foundation handed TFA $10 million in 2011. 

Also in 2011, Whitman’s foundation donated “$2.5 million to Summit Public Schools to start 10 more high-performing charter high schools in low-achieving areas in Silicon Valley, with a promise to double that amount if other tech titans match herSchools Matter: HILLARY AND HEWLETT PACKARD:

Today in Bad Edujournalism: Putting Lipstick on the Test-Prep Pig | the becoming radical

Today in Bad Edujournalism: Putting Lipstick on the Test-Prep Pig | the becoming radical:

Today in Bad Edujournalism: Putting Lipstick on the Test-Prep Pig

I often have to make sure I didn’t accidentally click on an article from The Onion, but, once again, this is actually in Education Week: Standardized-Test Prep Isn’t the Big, Bad Wolf.

And the real clincher is the author: “Travis Coleman has been teaching standardized-test prep for more than 10 years and is the LSAT curriculum manager at Magoosh Online Test Prep in Berkeley, Calif.”

So, let me understand this. A test-prep careerist is given a platform in the top education publication in the U.S. to defend test-prep?

The commentary sets out to refute Sal Khan’s attack on the test-prep industry, establishing a dichotomy between test-prep that addresses “content” and test-prep that addresses “test-taking skills.”

First, let’s not gloss over Khan, whose homophone name captures perfectly what the Khan Academy is, a con.

Just as one example, Karim Kai Ani offers a substantive critique of the poor quality of the Khan Academy math videos, concluding:

Unfortunately, the media hype surrounding Khan Academy has created a level of expectation far beyond what it – indeed, what any person or website – could ever reasonably deliver. Reporters have confused journalism with sycophantism, and the entire narrative has become a head-scratching example of the suspension of common sense.

The real problem with Khan Academy is not the low-quality videos or the absence of any pedagogical intentionality. It’s just one resource among many, after all. Rather, the danger is that we believe the promise of silver bullets – of simple solutions to complex problems – and in so doing become deaf to what really needs to be done.

But the Khan Academy in cahoots with the David Coleman SAT is an even greater con.

Now, to return to Travis Coleman’s defense of test-taking skills test-prep.

There is a serious core problem with high-stakes standardized testing that should be addressed: When a lackToday in Bad Edujournalism: Putting Lipstick on the Test-Prep Pig | the becoming radical:

More about privatization gone amok - Wait What?

More about privatization gone amok - Wait What?:

More about privatization gone amok

While there are certainly times that non-profit entities can and should be given responsibility for providing public services, the overwhelming evidence is that broad-based privatization does not save money not does it ensure that services will be provided in a more efficient and effective manner.

In fact, the mounting evidence is that broad privatization, without adequate on-going competition, has and continues to cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

As the inappropriate and wasteful impact of privatization has become evident, People for the American Way observed;

Privatization, whether promoted as a short-term way to fill a budget gap or as part of a long-term campaign against the government and unionized workers, can bring disastrous long-term consequences for American families and taxpayers as well as for the democratic process.

Numerous academic studies have revealed that privatizing of public assets, programs and services is not the panacea proponents of privatization promised.

Professor Ellen Dannin is a distinguished faculty scholar and professor of law at Penn State Dickinson School of Law.  She is also the author of “Crumbling Infrastructure, Crumbling Democracy: Infrastructure Privatization Contracts and Their Effects on State and Local Governance.”

In a guest post for the American Constitution Society entitled, The Toll Road to Serfdom, Professor Dannin takes on those who simplistically claim the privatization of infrastructure More about privatization gone amok - Wait What?:

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charter patron, union basher Whitman buys into the Clinton campaign

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charter patron, union basher Whitman buys into the Clinton campaign:

Charter patron, union basher Whitman buys into the Clinton campaign

An actress dressed as union basher, "Queen Meg" greets members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) during a rally at the CNA offices in Oakland.

I may live to regret these words, but I will unabashedly be voting for Hillary Clinton in November. Having said that, let me point out that many fellow Clinton supporters give me the creeps. Oh well. Strange bedfellows and all that.

If Hillary loses to neo-fascist Trump in November, it won't be because she ran out of cash. Lately, in a backlash against Trump's continued spewing of disgusting anti-immigrant and anti-woman garbage, there's a growing group of conservative Republican Wall Streeters throwing their money behind Clinton.

The latest GOP billionaire to endorse HC is former eBay and Hewlett Packard CEOMeg Whitman who revealed that Clinton, had reached out to her in a phone call about a month ago, one of the first indications that HC was aggressively courting Republican leaders.

Whitman has called Trump a "fascist", a "demagogue" and "a threat to American democracy" (she's obviously been paying attention) and tells NYT:

“I will vote for Hillary, I will talk to my Republican friends about helping her, and I will donate to her campaign and try to raise money for her.” 

Hillary getting millions in Wall St. cash comes as no surprise to anyone. Bernie Sanders made it a central issue in his primary run. But for Californians, who Schooling in the Ownership Society: Charter patron, union basher Whitman buys into the Clinton campaign:

New Book Defines the Case Against KIPP and Other Charter Management Organizations | janresseger

New Book Defines the Case Against KIPP and Other Charter Management Organizations | janresseger:

New Book Defines the Case Against KIPP and Other Charter Management Organizations

Charter schools have been with us now for two decades. Enough evidence and data have been gathered that it ought to be possible to assess their capacity for achieving what many describe as their goal: helping poor children and closing achievement gaps.  Samuel Abrams, the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, has just published Education and the Commercial Mindset, a fascinating evaluation of the role of two strategies for privatizing schools—the Education Management Organization (for-profit EMO) and the Charter Management Organization (not-for-profit CMO).

Abrams sets up a case study of Edison Schools to examine the role of for-profit school management and a case study of KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) to explore the workings of a huge, nonprofit charter network. While Abrams’ story of the ultimate failure of the for-profit EMOs is a fascinating read, the presence of the not-for-profits is of far more urgent interest; these are, after all, the fast-growing form of privatization. According to Abrams, if one removes the huge online, virtual-academy EMOs, the nonprofit CMOs are replacing the for-profit EMOs in terms of market share: “In sum, by 2011-2012, the latest academic year for which cumulative data are available, nearly one-third of students in schools managed by EMOs were online students; the number of CMO schools had far surpassed that of EMO schools; and the number of students in CMO schools had far exceeded the number of students in EMO brick-and-mortar schools.” (p. 193)

In an interview with journalist Jennifer Berkshire, Abrams clarifies the subject of the privatization of education with an essential definition: “Privatization takes the form of nonprofit as well as for-profit school management, as privatization technically means outsourcing the provision of government services to independent operators, whether nonprofit or for-profit.” In other words, nonprofit charter schools are a form of privatization, despite that their proponents and sponsors persist in calling them “public charter schools.”

While Abrams’ review of KIPP is mostly positive—especially compared with the record of Edison Schools that precedes his profile of KIPP,  he explains the KIPP Schools’ limitations and concludes that on the whole privatization—even the not-for-profit variety—has failed to fulfill the promises of proponents of the school choice marketplace:

• “Teacher retention has… been a central challenge for KIPP as well as similar CMOs.  The price is not merely time, energy, and money lost to recruitment and training of replacements but also quality of instruction… (T)he explanation for the negative impact New Book Defines the Case Against KIPP and Other Charter Management Organizations | janresseger:

Things That Just Don't Make Sense: Music Teacher Edition Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Things That Just Don't Make Sense: Music Teacher Edition

by Dr. Mitchell Robinson, BAT Leadership Team

originally published on his blog:  http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2016/08/02/things-that-just-don-t-make-sense-music-teacher-edition/  

02 Aug 2016

Over the last few weeks I've had the good fortune to spend time with my favorite group of persons: music teachers. And whenever I get a chance to hang with music folks we have the best conversations--and by that, I mean that I hear some absolutely jaw-dropping, eye-popping stuff about what is actually happening out in their schools with respect to educational policy and practice.

To be clear, in many school districts, things are going swimmingly: music programs are healthy and robust, performing ensembles are full and thriving, and schedules are constructed so as to make students' learning comprehensive and teachers' duties reasonable. But in too many places, decisions are being made that just don't make sense.

For example...

• In one large urban school district, music teacher candidates are being asked to react to math and reading data during their interviews for a music teaching position. The justification from the district was along the lines of, "every teacher in our schools plays a role in producing these test results, so every teacher is required to understand what the data means and how to use it to improve their teaching."
  
  Except that every teacher in the district DOES NOT play a role in those students' test scores in those subjects--music teachers are not responsible for teaching the information on these tests, and should not be expected to teach this information. They weren't prepared to teach these subjects in their undergraduate or graduate Badass Teachers Association:

New York State Opt-out and the ESSA Title I Showdown | deutsch29

New York State Opt-out and the ESSA Title I Showdown | deutsch29:

New York State Opt-out and the ESSA Title I Showdown

On August 01, 2016, the New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) offered this press release regarding New York students in grades 3 through 8 opting out of the state’s Common Core-associated tests in math and English language arts (ELA).

The NYSAPE press release begins as follows:

This past Friday afternoon, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) released the results of the 2016 NYS Common Core 3-8 ELA and math results. Despite expensive ad campaigns from Gates-funded advocacy groups and the distribution of “Anti Opt-out” toolkits by Commissioner Elia aimed at persuading parents to opt in to state tests, the test non-participation rate increased from 20 percent last year to 22 percent. [Emphasis added.]

One could think of the opt out percentages in terms of test takers: 80 percent in 2015, and 78 percent in 2016.

Of course, when it comes to states’ applying to the US Department of Education (USDOE) for Title I funding, the magic number indicating what Congress has determined to be the minimum percentage of eligible test takers completing those state-level math and ELA tests is 95 percent.

According to a USDOE letter sent to the New York “Chief State School Officer” on December 22, 2015 (following that 80 percent test completion rate), USDOE stated possible actions for 2015-16 testing that did not meet the prescribed 95 percent threshold:

If a State with participation rates below 95% in the 2014−2015 school year fails to assess at least 95% of its students on the statewide assessment in the 2015−2016 school year, ED (USDOE) will take one or more of the following actions: (1) withhold Title I, Part A State administrative funds; (2) place the State’s Title I, Part A grant on high-risk status and direct the State to use a portion of its Title I State administrative funds to address low 

New York State Opt-out and the ESSA Title I Showdown | deutsch29: