Education Week - March 21, 2018 - 6

N.D. Districts Can Substitute ACT for State Test
The state is the first
to get federal OK
By Catherine Gewertz
In the first move of its kind, the
U.S. Department of Education has
granted North Dakota permission
to use a new kind of testing flexibility in federal law: the right to let
school districts substitute the ACT
for the state's own required high
school assessment.
North Dakota officials announced
the decision this month, after receiving a permission-granting letter from
the Education Department.
Seventeen districts in North Dakota-which together enroll 3,735
11th grade students, half the state's
high school juniors-will administer the ACT to all 11th graders this
spring and use it to report achievement for accountability. Students in
those districts will not have to take
the state's required high school exam.
In all other North Dakota districts,
students in grades 3-8 and 10 will be
required to take the North Dakota
State Assessment, a new suite of tests
making their debut this spring. Eleventh graders in those districts will
also take the ACT, which is required
of all students in the state.
That additional testing burden is
what led North Dakota to ask for
federal permission to take advan-

tage of a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act. The new federal
education law says that if states
allow it, districts can stop giving
their state's required high school
test and give a "nationally recognized" high school test instead-
meaning the SAT or ACT. (A recent
study, however, warns states against
using college-admissions tests in
place of their state tests to measure
high school achievement. See story,
next page.)
"Any time we can take fewer tests
in high school, that means our students are spending more time learning in our classrooms, rather than
being tested," Kirsten Baesler, North
Dakota's state eaducation superintendent, said in a statement.

First Denial, Then Approval
A few states have been exploring
the option, but until North Dakota,
none had cemented an agreement
to do it. Georgia has an assessment
task force looking into it and is awaiting results of two studies to inform
its thinking. Florida's plans are up
in the air after a study it commissioned found that letting districts use
the SAT or ACT instead of state tests
might not yield comparable results.
Getting the plan approved in North
Dakota was a bumpy road. Despite
rhetoric from federal policymakers
about ESSA's new testing flexibility
for states, the Education Department

turned down North Dakota's request
for a waiver to give its districts the
choice of using the ACT this spring.
In a Jan. 29 letter to Baesler, Jason
Botel, the federal department's point
man on ESSA, cited that law and
regulations that require states to
undergo a detailed technical review
before districts can get the choice
of using the SAT or ACT instead of
state-mandated tests.
That review would evaluate
whether a college-admissions exam
yields valid and reliable achievement
data that are also comparable to the
state tests other districts would be
using. The review would also examine whether all students who need
accommodations have access to them
on both kinds of tests.
Though it's enshrined in federal
law, the requirement that a state
undergo technical review before giving a new test for the first time is
counter to current practice. When a
state adopts a new test now, it administers the test for one year to gather
evidence for the federal "peer review"
process. The Education Department
then informs the state whether it has
been fully approved to use the test.
Full approval is rare, however; typically, states are told their tests "substantially" or "partially" meet federal
requirements and must submit more
evidence to satisfy peer reviewers.
During that process, states can keep
using their assessments.
North Dakota was aware of the

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law's prior-review requirement, so
officials knew they would need a
Department of Education waiver in
order to give the ACT this spring,
along with new state tests.
In a Nov. 29 waiver request, Laurie
Matzke, North Dakota's assistant
superintendent, noted the conflict between common peer-review practice
and the requirements in ESSA and
related regulations, saying that it's
been "common and accepted practice"
for states to use a new test and then
undergo review.

'Excessive Testing' Argument
She argued that if North Dakota
had to wait another year to let districts opt for the ACT, it would disrupt
the continuity of testing data, since
half the state's high school students
would have to take the new 10th
grade test this spring and then switch
to the ACT in 2019.
Matzke pointed out that refusing
the waiver would extend the "excessive testing" that's been the target of
nationwide debate. She said denying
the waiver would contradict the spirit
of ESSA, which "was created with emphasis on state and local control." In
an interview late last month, Superintendent Baesler noted the "baffling
irony" in the law and regulations. If a
state wants to adopt the SAT or ACT
as its statewide high school exam, it
can do so without submitting the test
to review before it's administered for

the first time. Prior review is required
only if a state wants to let districts
substitute one of those tests for its
statewide test.
"If we just told all our districts that
the ACT was our statewide test, we
would have been able to do peer review after the first administration [of
the test]," she said. "But we surveyed
districts, and they wanted the choice."
Eventually, Baesler and Botel settled on another way to get plan approval: a little-noticed provision in
federal law that allows top officials
to use their "transitional authority"
to ensure an "orderly transition" to a
new law.
In his letter, Botel said that since
2017-18 is the first year of full implementation for ESSA, it's "reasonable"
that North Dakota had not had time
for a full technical review of its plan.
He approved its plan to let districts
choose their high school tests for
2017-18 but said the state must submit to a full review before spring 2019
testing.
It wasn't clear whether a reluctance
to use waivers played a role in the
federal Education Department's decision. The department did not respond
to repeated requests for interviews on
North Dakota's waiver application.
Under President Barack Obama, the
agency was criticized for overusing
waivers to advance a policy agenda.
Then-Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan allowed states to bypass
key provisions of the No Child Left
Behind Act if they embraced specific department policies, including
adopting "college and career ready"
academic standards

Social-Emotional Learning
What Are Schools' Most Pressing Needs?
In this webinar, we will hear
from a pair of experts who work
directly with states and districts
about the products that schools
need the most, and where
schools' demands are headed.

guEStS
* MELiSSa SchLingEr,
vice president of programs
and practice, CASEL: the
Collaborative for Academic,
Social, and Emotional Learning
* nick YodEr, senior
technical assistance
consultant for the American
Institutes for Research
ModErator
* SEan cavanagh, senior
editor, EdWeek Market Brief

PrEMiuM WEbinar (free for MArket Brief MeMBerS) thurSdAy, MArch 22, 2018 / 2 to 3 P.M. et / www.edweek.org/go/webinar/SeLneeds

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Education Week - March 21, 2018

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