The US Department of Education is gone! Half the employees have been fired with the remaining probably on their way out. According to Trump we don’t need a USDoE, states can run our education system, of course, states have always run our education system, every state has a department of education, a governing board, usually appointed by the governor (in NYS chosen by the legislature) who hires a commissioner who sets the standards for the thousands of school districts. NYS has 700 school districts, most five or fewer schools and a few large districts (Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Yonkers and NYC).
About 90% of school funding is raised locally either through property taxes and/or state revenues by formulas set by the state. In NYS there is a wide disparity among districts due to the dependence on property taxes. The feds provide about 10% of funding, for example Title 1 schools, high poverty schools receive funds allocated by Congress, along with funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA).
The Congress recently passed recessions, “clawing back” dollars already approved by Congress and the US DoE withholding other funds,
(FLASH: Trump administration releases billions in frozen money for schools)
A major role of the US DoE is establishing a national framework, currently called Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA), requiring annual reading and math tests and one high school test. States are required to provide a remediation plan for the lowest achieving school districts and schools, and the process is transparent.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, considered the gold standard, samples students every few years in a variety of subjects and grades. The Nation’s Report Card | NAEP publishes the findings, allowing the public and state legislators to see results over the years and, hopefully, amend processes to increase outcomes.
On the NAEP 2024 4th grade Math NYS was just below the 50th percentile, it has been for many years,
TUDA, the Trial District Urban Assessment, provides data for 27 of the largest urban school districts, NYC does pretty well.
The Institute of Education Sciences, What Works ClearingHouse, part of the USDoE, publishes evidence-based suggestions on a wide range of topics, for example, “Practitioner Perspectives of the What Works Clearinghouse: A Summary of the First Year of the Small Working Group of Experienced Education Practitioners”
With the firing of half of the staff and a commitment to continue to downsize the remnants of the USDoE it is unlikely that NAEP and the What Works Clearinghouse will survive,
ESSA, federal law is not going away, states will still be required to test, since states select the tests, the question of whether the results of the test will drive practice, aka, assessment and accountability is left to the state. Ideally the results on tests will impact practice, for example, a review of an error matrix impacts lesson planning, most teachers view testing as an interruption of teaching and a waste of time, However, there are districts that utilize data in a meaningful fashion.
The Center for Assessment works with states, I try to attend their conferences, at their next conference,
Students are being over-tested in most American classrooms. Do all these assessments provide educators and leaders with unique and valuable information, or do some of them overwhelm the system with more data than information?
We can create a better balance of assessments, so that state, district, school and classroom leaders get good, timely information that can inform decisions at their level of the system. We can do this by: (1) ensuring the purpose and use for each assessment is made clear; (2) building tighter linkages among the curriculum, instruction, and assessment; and (3) carefully weighing the tradeoffs of reducing instructional time to obtain assessment information.
Examples of more balanced assessment systems are rare, but we will elevate voices of those leading this work, drawing on their different approaches to build a broader set of implementation features to help accelerate this work at scale.
NYS has been moving towards replacing Regents Examination with, hummm, see the last Board of Regents Meeting here (Board of Regents Meeting – July 14, 2025 (Part 1). I am baffled, while the “Portrait of a Graduate” describes what I would call “soft skills” I don’t know how you assess them. High School teachers usually teach five classes a day, let’s say 25 kids in a class, 125 students, the practices described by the State Ed presenter would be fine if I taught 25 kids, not 125 kids.
I’ve asked a number of assessment gurus if you can use portfolios in lieu of tests to assess students, the standard answer, no, there is no way of getting around inter-rater reliability.
The 38 Consortium Schools Our Schools — New York Performance Standards Consortium, primarily in NYC are small high schools whose instructional methodology is based on project-based instruction with a portfolio/roundtable method of student assessment. Listen to a video Bing Videos of Ann Cook, the director describing the schools, the schools are carefully chosen with an incredible level of collaboration within and among schools.
I asked a NYC high school principal, a school with 2500 kids whether she could transition from the current Regents Exam system to the Portrait of a Graduate system, she smiled, “…it’ll be up to my replacement.”
ESSA requires one test in high school, most school districts use the SAT or the ACT, there are no pass/fail grades, how will NYS avoid the ESSA high school test requirement? The State appears to be saying pick an assessment, with a large menu, of course if there is no USDoE …
I am baffled by a piece of data, in 2023 data, all high schools in NYS, an 87% high school graduation rate and a statewide 35% chronic absenteeism rate.
Who are the students who are absent one in five days and passing five regents exams and all their coursework? I guess a discussion for another day.
Ed in the Apple: Blogging on the Intersection of Education and Politics Title 