Education Week - May 11, 2016 - 18

ESSA Boosts Data-Reporting Mandates for States, Districts
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

to close them," said Rep. Bobby
Scott, D-Va., the top Democrat on
the House education committee
who pushed for many of the new
requirements, along with Sen.
Patty Murray, D-Wash, the ranking member of the Senate education committee. But, Scott added,
"if achievement gaps persist,
ESSA ensures that federal policymakers will have the data and
information to demand increased
federal protections to better serve
disadvantaged students."

Funding Information
One of the most-talked-about new
requirements: Districts must now
make it clear how much they are
actually spending in each school.
And they have to specify how
much money schools are getting
from different sources, including
the district, the state, and the federal government. That requirement
was included in an early draft of the
law written by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and it stayed in the bill
through the legislative finish line.
That provision has drawn excitement in the civil rights community.
"We do not have enough dollars in
education and we need every single
dollar to be working very hard," said

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Liz King, the director of education
policy for the Leadership Conference
on Civil and Human Rights. "That
will only happen when we know
where they are."
Another potentially powerful
new requirement: States and districts will have to present their ac-

People have very
different opinions
about the federal role
[in K-12], but there
is shared agreement
that transparency
is important."
DARIA HALL
Education Trust

ademic data, including test results
and graduation rates, in a form
that can be easily "crosstabulated"
so that researchers can better isolate the performance of certain
types of students. One possible
example: finding dropout rates for
male English-learners.

The ability to track students at
that level could help states and
districts figure out the best interventions for schools where a particular group of students aren't
performing well, said Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, a counsel for education at the National Women's
Law Center.
The requirement will allow districts to have "more detailed data
and make sure their interventions
are based on facts and data instead of generalizations and oversimplifications about how students
are doing," she said.
W hile distr icts and schools
aren't required to use the information to figure out how to fix persistent problems, Onyeka-Crawford
expects that many will want to.

Long Time Coming
Some of the new reporting requirements have been a long time
in the making.
For instance, the Military Child
Education Coalition has been pushing for the past seven years for
military children to get their own
reporting category, alongside racial
minorities, disadvantaged children,
students in special education, and
English-language learners.
"We don't know how military
children are faring academically,"
said David Lapan, the organiza-

tion's senior director for the National Capitol Region. "We know
the challenges they face, moving
frequently and parent separation,
but we don't know if they are overcoming those challenges because
there is an absence of data."
Once ESSA kicks in fully-during
the 2017-18 school year-advocates
for military students will be able to
see if, and where, such students are
falling short of their peers and get
clues on how to help them get back
on track, Lapan said.
That's not to say every reporting requirement that advocates
wanted was included in the law.
The Military Child Education
Coalition, for instance, had wanted
data requirements on the children
of both active-duty military, which
covers about 1.5 million children,
and the National Guard and Reserve, which covers about another
half million. But the law only focuses on active-duty personnel.
Lapan is hoping that states will
continue to track those students.
Right now, 19 states consider outcomes for military children, and
most of those include the children
of National Guard service members in the mix.
W hat 's more, advocates for
Asian-American students had
hoped to get a requirement for
more precise reporting on those
children, given that the category

encompasses such a diverse mix of
backgrounds.
In the end, ESSA didn't require
the specificity they wanted. But
it did empower the department
to help states better differentiate
among Asian students, if states
choose to. Last week, the department made $1 million in grants
available for this purpose.

Understandable to Parents
One big hurdle that comes along
with the new requirements: ensuring that the data will actually
be accessible and easy for parents
and advocates to understand.
It will be a challenge, Hall said,
"to make sure that the data are
high-quality and accurate and
comparable."
State chiefs are up to that task,
said Maureen Wentworth Matthews, the director of Education
Data and Information Systems at
the Council of Chief State School
Officers. After all, over the past
decade, states have made great
strides in improving their data
collection and reporting systems,
she said.
In an email, she said states "are
ready and willing to take the lead
in meeting the new requirements to
help ensure state accountability and
school improvement systems better
meet the needs of all students."

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18 | EDUCATION WEEK | May 11, 2016 | www.edweek.org

guesT
* GAry MArx, president,
Center for Public outreach
moderaTor
* MAry Hendrie, assistant
commentary editor,
Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/go/webinars http://www.edweek.org/go/webinar/21stCenturyTrends http://www.edweek.org/go/webinar/21stCenturyTrends http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - May 11, 2016

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