Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Plan Resubmission
2017-2018
January 9, 2018
TO THE ADMINISTRATOR ADDRESSED:
SUBJECT: Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Plan Resubmission
On Jan. 8, 2018, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) submitted a revised version of its Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state plan to the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). A copy of the revised state plan can be viewed at https://tea.texas.gov/About_TEA/Laws_and_Rules/ESSA/Every_Student_Succe….
TEA was provided 15 calendar days to submit these revisions based on official feedback received from USDE on Dec. 21, 2017. That feedback letter requested specific clarifications to our plan to ensure the state is complying with the new federal statute. Due to federal timeline requirements, the Agency was forced to make preliminary decisions on the new House Bill 22 (HB 22) accountability system ahead of the timeline for our state rulemaking.
I want to emphasize the decisions laid out in our revised ESSA plan do not reflect final stakeholder input and are an effort to comply with federal timelines and requirements. We will continue to seek input from the field leading up to the release of proposed accountability rules in March.
The major areas of clarification requested by USDE centered on our new academic accountability system outlined in HB 22, passed by the 85th Legislature and signed by the Governor. We have been working diligently over the past several months to solicit and receive feedback from stakeholders across the state on the design of the new system with a target of releasing proposed accountability rules in March. Those feedback efforts will continue as we finalize proposed state rules.
It is important to note that if additional feedback leads to decisions different from what is proposed and already submitted in our ESSA plan, we will submit amendments to USDE that reflect input from stakeholders.
If you have additional questions about our ESSA state plan please contact Mark Baxter (mark.baxter@tea.texas.gov) and for additional information on implementation of HB 22 please contact at 512-463-9704 or performance.reporting@tea.texas.gov.
Sincerely,
Mike Morath
Commissioner