Over the holiday break, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued feedback to Texas on its final plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which it submitted in September. The letter requests that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) revise its plan consistent with the feedback identified by ED and resubmit its plan by Monday, unless the state chooses to request a later date of re-submission.

The full letter, which includes 11 pages of feedback, identifies issues with various aspects of the state’s plan. Among the revisions requested, ED disputes the state’s calculation of graduation rate progress for accountability purposes (for some subgroups, progress is not anticipated); strikes down the exclusion of test results for certain English language learners (recently arrived English language learners would not be included in some accountability results for the first two years and some asylum/refugee students would not be counted for up to five years); and questions whether the state’s inclusion of the new 95 percent testing participation rate requirement is adequate for calculating school accountability (Texas would use it to calculate accountability, but ED isn’t sure it’s being used appropriately within the system).

Another revision noted by ED is one resulting from a strict interpretation of the statutory language. TEA proposes using STAAR results in science, social studies, and writing to calculate results under the Academic Achievement indicator, but ED asks TEA to move those elsewhere in the accountability system because the law states that only reading/language arts and mathematics are permissible under the Academic Achievement indicator. ED also asks for more clarity on the School Quality or Student Success indicator, which TEA would calculate using STAAR math and reading scores in grades 3-8 and college, career, and military readiness indicators in high school.

Watch Teach the Vote next week for more on the Texas ESSA plan as TEA meets its deadline to respond. In a statement released last month, education officials in California stated they appreciated the feedback but noted “areas of disagreement over the interpretation of federal statute.” The statement is an example of uncertainty with regard to how ESSA compliance plays out at the state level while the federal government seeks to shift more control to states and sticks to strict interpretation of the law in lieu of rulemaking.