After months of town halls, meetings and debate, the Colorado education department on Friday released a draft of a plan detailing how it would use federal funds to measure and improve its lowest performing schools, train teachers and support English language learners.
Now it’s your turn to tell the department and the committees that helped shape the plan what you think.
The plan comes in response to the nation’s new education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. The intent of ESSA, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015, was to shift the power in public schools from Washington to the states. Not everyone in Colorado agrees the law was successful in providing more flexibility, however.
Because Colorado was operating under a waiver from the nation’s previous education law, No Child Left Behind, much is expected to remain the same in Colorado classrooms with ESSA — at least for now.
The major points of contention in developing the plan were how to allocate federal funds for schools that need improvement, how to define and report teacher qualifications, and what new data should be used to measure school quality.
The state is also planning to push back on a requirement that at least 95 percent of students take the state’s English and math standardized tests. The department believes Colorado law that allows parents to excuse their students from the tests is permissible under another portion of ESSA.
“I think to a certain extent the law speaks out both sides of its mouth,” said Pat Chapman, the education department’s executive director of federal programs. “We’ll see what the department says.”
After public comment closes March 10, department officials will circle up with its committees, the State Board of Education and the governor one last time before submitting it for federal review in April.
State lawmakers have expressed interest in rethinking many of the parts that make up Colorado’s public school system, including testing and school ratings. However, many are holding their fire until after the state education department completes its process.