Setting Goals for Accountability with ESSA

Though educators know that learning the fundamentals of reading by early elementary is so important to long-term academic success, only around one in three kids are proficient readers by the fourth grade, says the information piece called “Setting Goals for Accountability with ESSA” by the Ed Trust organization. For black, Native and Latino children, of which many are English learners (ELs), the numbers are even lower—at around one in five, it says.

None of these figures, however, will change overnight. In fact, they won’t change at all, states ED, unless state leaders set clear and achievable goals for improvement that communicate a real sense of urgency about the important need of tackling head-on the gaps in opportunity that contribute so much to these results.

The good news is that since the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has reduced the federal role in education accountability by eliminating many of the requirements from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), states now have a lot more leeway in developing their own accountability systems, says the education organization, ACSD.

To help bring this to fruition, it says that ESSA now requires states to set long-term goals and measures of interim progress in a minimum of three areas: (1) state assessment results in reading/language arts and math, (2) graduation rates, and (3) progress toward English language proficiency for English learners. It also stipulates that a school’s performance against these goals, both for all students and for each group of students it serves, must have substantial weight in its rating.

In regard to English learners, specifically, the federal Department of Education (ED) says that a number of changes to § 200.13 for EL’s now includes having a uniform plan containing specific long-term goals and measurements of interim progress to make annual progress towards them attaining English Language Proficiency (ELP).

To help schools meet ESSA goals for accountability, The Latino Family Literacy Project can train your teachers and staff. It has a 17-year track record of providing proven and effective parent involvement programs for English language learners and their families.

The Project offers open enrollment in-person workshops, in-person workshops specifically for your district, or webinars with no out of classroom costs. Whichever form of training is chosen, the administrators, teachers, bilingual aides, parent coordinators and anyone else who attend can guarantee these evidence-based workshops are super informative and fun!

After completing the training, teachers, administrators and staff then hold parent workshops to assist them in establishing an at-home reading routine which, along with improving literacy in both Spanish and English, helps with vocabulary, not just for the kids, but parents too. For more information, please visit The Latino Family Literacy Workshop.