By Charles Barone, National Parents Union Senior Director of the Center for Innovation
Many of us in the education policy world attended the “National Forum on the Future of Assessment and Accountability” in Dallas last week, hosted by the consulting firm Education First. The conference brought together about 300 policymakers, researchers, analysts, and advocates in everything from plenary presentations to small group confabs to sort out what’s working in assessments and accountability, what’s not, and, per the title, what should come next.
There was, however, a giant elephant in the room. On the one hand, there’s fairly wide agreement – probably in the 80-90% range – that the current federal guardrails around assessments under the “Every Student Succeeds Act” or “ESSA” should remain in place: annual testing for all students in math and ELA in grades 3-8 and once in high school, with science being tested once in each grade span (elementary, middle, and high) and data disaggregated for students from historically disadvantaged groups.
This is in line with the views of parents who also want assessment and other data both about their children and the schools in which they’re enrolled. In an NPU poll released earlier this year, 86% of parents supported requiring schools to provide access to data on student achievement as well as discipline and enrollment so that families and policymakers can make informed decisions.
On the other hand, however, the conference took place amidst the backdrop of a dizzying flurry of executive orders from President Trump and an ever unfolding wave of actions by Elon Musk and DOGE to downsize and disrupt the federal government in general and the Department of Education (ED) in particular. And, to this observer at least, one of the aspects of federal law most vulnerable to this onslaught are ESSA guardrails around assessments.
Trump wants to completely dismantle ED and his nominee for Secretary, Linda McMahon, says she agrees with that goal. While McMahon concedes that completely getting rid of ED would require an act of Congress, there’s a lot she could do without Congressional action, and that includes dismantling the federal framework for assessments and accountability.
The Secretary of Education is barred from waiving a litany of basic provisions in the ESSA law such as the allocation of funding to states and districts, maintenance of effort, parental participation and involvement, and “applicable”(1) civil rights requirements, inter alia. Assessments and accountability are emphatically not on that list.
This means that the Secretary could, if she so chose, unilaterally curtail or even completely eliminate federal testing requirements. Think it couldn’t happen? Secretary Betsy DeVos waived, justifiably, all federal testing requirements at the start of the pandemic just five years ago. States had to apply for the waiver but every state did and every waiver was granted. A year later, the Biden Administration reinstated the testing requirements, in theory, but in reality lots of states slacked off. California, for example, allowed school districts to use local measures in lieu of state tests in 2021 – a clear violation of ESSA – and the feds let it happen. ED also approved a waiver for New Mexico to leave the decision of whether to test students entirely up to local school districts. These are just two examples.
Politically, support for waiving federal testing requirements could come not only from rightward pressure to dismantle ED but from the left as well. Teachers unions, especially the NEA, fought hard against assessment and accountability provisions in 2015 during the ESSA legislative process, through which other pro-assessment and accountability advocacy organizations – especially business, civil rights, and disability groups – prevailed . If you don’t think the union is still sore from that loss and wouldn’t work to avenge it, even if it means getting into bed with Linda McMahon and the Trump Administration, then you don’t know the NEA.
I’m amazed by how many attendees at the Future of Assessment and Accountability convening – not most, but a significant minority – seem to believe that states would act responsibly if/when federal assessments guardrails are removed. Because what we’ve seen from many if not most states in recent years have been actions to lower the bar and obfuscate assessment data rather than keep standards high and push forward to help more children read, write, and do math at grade level. Anyone wanna bet that loosening federal requirements will only enable and encourage more irresponsible behavior?
If the blowback from the chaos, fear, and destruction unleashed by Trump and Musk so far isn’t enough to give them pause, it seems unlikely that an appeal to principle (Republicans, after all, clearly aspire to be the party of high academic standards, rigor, and merit) and reason will be enough to protect federal assessment guardrails. Nor does it seem that there’s an ample supply of backbone among the Republican majority in Congress. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to push on that front. But it also means that it’s time for those who believe in transparency and data-driven policymaking – including ample majorities of parents – to prepare accordingly and get to work outside the Beltway in their state capitals and local school districts.
(1) The term “applicable” has always seemed ripe for mischief; perhaps current events will necessitate litigation to sort out what, exactly, “applicable” means.