State Education Department Submits Every Student Succeeds Act Plan to U.S. Department of Education

The State Education Department today submitted New York’s Every Student Succeeds Act plan to the U.S. Department of Education. The Board of Regents approved the plan at its September meeting.

In addition, NYSED today released ESSA fact sheets for parents and educators. These summary documents explain the final ESSA plan and will be translated in additional languages.

“This ESSA plan represents the future for the children of this state,” Chancellor Betty A. Rosa said. “It’s an inclusive plan that incorporates input from a comprehensive group of stakeholders—superintendents, school board members, teachers, parents, community members and thought partners including Linda Darling-Hammond and Scott Marion. This is also a living, breathing document that we will regularly evaluate and revise as appropriate, to ensure that our core focus is on promoting equity and the success of our children.”

“We’ve been working toward this moment for more than a year and I feel confident we have achieved our mission in the plan we’ve submitted.” Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said. “We send it to Washington now, confident that it will ultimately be approved and that we will then begin to move forward to implement these initiatives that are critical for New York’s students.”

The ESSA plan emphasizes fostering equity in education for New York’s students; expands measures for school support and accountability and student success; and requires school-level improvement plans for the lowest performing schools overall as well as schools with the lowest performance for certain student populations. The plan also includes strategies for supporting the professional growth of educators and ensuring that all students, including English language learners/Multilingual learners, immigrant students, migratory youth, homeless youth, and neglected and delinquent youth, have access to a well-rounded, culturally responsive education that supports their academic and social-emotional development.

The Department detailed highlights of the plan to the Board of Regents at its September meeting. The final ESSA plan is posted in full on the Department’s ESSA webpage.

Stakeholder Engagement

For the past year, NYSED has engaged diverse groups of stakeholders to solicit recommendations on how to craft an ESSA plan that best meets the needs of the state’s students, schools and communities. In support of these efforts, NYSED established an ESSA Think Tank with representatives from more than 100 organizations, including district leaders, teachers, parents, and community members. The Department also consulted with national education experts regarding ESSA, including Linda Darling-Hammond (Learning Policy Institute) and Scott F. Marion (National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment).

In addition, NYSED held more than 120 fall and winter regional in-person meetings across the state in coordination with the state’s 37 Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) and the superintendents of the state’s five largest City School Districts, which were attended by more than 4,000 students, parents, teachers, school and district leaders, school board members, and other stakeholders.

The Department received more than 800 written comments and 270 verbal comments at the meetings during public comment period. In addition to hosting 13 public hearings on the plan from May 11 through June 16, NYSED also held more than 120 stakeholder and public meetings between October 2016 and May 2017 to gather input to help inform the development of the draft plan.

Next Steps

It is anticipated that USDE will provide feedback to the Department in December 2017. Final approval of the state’s ESSA plan is expected in January or February next year. After the plan is approved by the USDE, the Department will work with BOCES District superintendents, district and school leaders, teachers and other educators and other stakeholder groups to implement the ESSA plan.