Just before the Christmas holiday, ED released some initial guidance on how ESSA will be implemented. The guidance can be found here.
Some notable pieces:
- Waivers granted through ESEA flexibility remain effective through August 1, 2016.
- Because ESEA flexibility terminates on August 1, 2016, a State will no longer be required to submit follow-up responses to ED related to areas of ESEA flexibility that are not required under both the ESEA and ESSA.
- ED will not require States to submit AMOs (for school years 2014–2015 or 2015–2016) in January 2016 for ED’s review and approval, nor will ED require States to report performance against AMOs for the 2014–2015 or 2015– 2016 school years.
- All States and districts must continue to publish report cards, including report cards for the 2014–2015 school year (if those report cards have not yet been published), for the 2015– 2016 school year, and beyond.
- Report cards must continue to include information that shows how a district’s student achievement on the State assessments compares to students and subgroups of students in the State as a whole.
- At the school level, the district must include information that shows how a school’s student achievement on the State assessments compares to students and subgroups of students in the district and in the State as a whole.
- Priority and focus school lists- states (with waivers) must select one of the following two options:
- A – Do not exit schools and maintain current identification, i.e. freeze any additional identification. These schools would continue to implement their approved interventions through the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 school years. The State would not be able to exit schools from the current lists until after the 2016–2017 school year.
- B – Exit schools and identify new priority and focus schools. A State may exit priority and focus schools that meet the State’s approved exit criteria and identify new priority (at least 5 percent of Title I schools) and focus (at least 10 percent of Title I schools) schools based on more recent data. Newly identified schools, as well as those that remain on these lists because they did not meet the State’s exit criteria, would implement their approved interventions through the 2016–2017 school year. A State selecting this option must provide updated lists of priority and focus schools to ED by Monday, March 1, 2016.
Strategy • Implementation • Transformation 
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