Summary of Key PA ESSA Plan Issues in NDSC and Advocacy Institute Analysis
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the law that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in December of 2015. Every state must submit an implementation plan to the U.S. Department of Education for approval. It is a very important plan for students with disabilities because it determines how schools will be held accountable for the academic performance of all students, as well as specific subgroups—including the disability subgroup. NDSC and the Advocacy Institute developed a detailed analysis of the Pennsylvania ESSA draft plan, which can be found at This document provides a summary of key issues in that analysis. The public comment period on the draft plan started on July 31 and runs for 30 days. The plan will be submitted for approval on September 18, 2017.
The full draft plan is available at A survey to submit public comments on the draft plan is available at Comments can also be emailed to .
Academic Goals (page 2 of analysis)
By 2030, students with disabilities (SWDs) are only expected to be 58.6% proficient in math and 62.7% proficient in English language arts. The goal for the four-year graduation rate for SWDs by 2030 is to increase the rate from 71.5% to 85.8%. It is difficult to see how that can be accomplished with such low proficiency goals.
Indicators (page 6 of analysis)
These indicators are supposed to be tied to the goals and disaggregated by subgroups. The results on these measures will be used in the annual differentiation of schools to come up with schools ratings. These ratings are to be reported to the public and impact whether schools are identified for targeted or comprehensive support and improvement (TSI and CSI).
It is not clear in the plan how the indicators will be used for subgroups. Also, the academic achievement indicator is supposed to be impacted if schools fail to assess at least 95% of all students and each subgroup. If a school does not meet this requirement it has to include 95% of students who were tested, and those who should have been assessed in the denominator. PA’s plan only refers to tested students. This adjustment to the academic achievement calculation for untested students isa requirement in the law and is an important way to keep schools from encouraging certain students to skip the test, as happened frequently for SWDs before NCLB.
N size (page 8 of analysis)
PA has selected an N size of 20. Schools that have fewer students in the disability subgroup (for all assessed grades combined) will not be held accountable for their performance, nor will they have to report this data. Schools that have fewer than 20 SWDs in the senior class will not be held accountable for graduation rate, nor will they have to report this data. PA claims only 4% of SWDs will be excluded from assessment accountability with an N size of 20. They do not provide information on the percentage of schools that will not be held accountable for the disability subgroup.
Annual Meaningful Differentiation of Schools (page 10 of analysis)
This section of the plan describes how schools will be identified for CSI but does not clearly indicate how each school will be given a rating or how data on the indicators will be supplied for each school, regardless of whether they are identified for CSI. It is important that families in every school know how their children are performing. There also isn’t a clear statement about how subgroup performance will be counted in this process.
ESSA requires states to assign weight to each indicator. Substantial weightmust be given to each academic indicator defined in the statute (Academic Achievement, Other Academic Indicator, Graduation Rate and English Language Proficiency) and, in the aggregate, these indicators should have much greater weight than the School Quality and Student Success (SQSS) non-academic indicator(s) selected by the state. PA is violating the law because it doesn’t assign weights to each indicator. It appears that the achievement and growth indicators are given a lot of weight, but there is no information on how graduation rate and English language proficiency are being factored in for each school as compared to the SQSS indicators.
Annual Measurement of Achievement –At least 95% Participation Rate Requirement (page 11 of analysis)
In addition to the way this rule is supposed to impact the measurement of academic achievement on assessments (as previously discussed), the law requires statesto also factor the failure to meet the participation rate rule for all students OR any subgroup into the “annual meaningful differentiation of schools” process. PA ignores this requirement. The PA plan merely requires the publication of the participation rates in the school report card and requiresthe school to develop an improvement plan if it does not meet the participation requirement. PA’s plan also does not make not clear that these things must happen if a subgroup does not meet the participation requirement, not solely if the “all student” group fails to assess 95% of its students. We recommend that a school should not get a satisfactory rating in the annual differentiation of schools process if the participation rate rule is not met for all students OR for any subgroup.
Including ALL schools in the Accountability System (page 11 of analysis)
The plan says that PA will consider whether it will include schools that serve special populations in the annual meaningful differentiation of schools process. This is unacceptable. ESSA requires all schools to be included, although the state can use a different methodology for certain schools.
Identification of Schools for TSI and CSI (page 11 of analysis)
The most important category of schools for SWDs is the one that identifies schools with a consistently underperforming subgroup or subgroups for TSI. That is because students in all the other categories of schools have to be extremely low performing, and in some categories must be Title I schools, before anything happens. We have to be concerned about SWDs in all schools not just the lowest performing or high poverty schools.
PA’s definition of schools with consistently underperforming subgroups puts the bar too low. The plan uses the same methodology used for identifying the bottom 5% of Title I schools. There is no point in having distinct categories of schools in the law if PA waits for such low performance before any schools are identified for support and improvement plans. We recommend that consistently underperforming subgroup should be defined as a subgroup that has not met, or is not on track to meet, the state defined long‐term goals or interim measures for that subgroup for two consecutive years.
Supporting Excellent Teachers and Supporting All Students (pages 13-15 in the analysis)
There is very little discussion of strategies to improve academic performance for SWDs in the plan. It is fine for the broader strategies to also be used for SWDs but it should be made clear how these strategies apply to SWDs—including those who are not in general education classes. Too often key instructional initiatives do not make it to special education classrooms.
Also, considering the low rates of inclusion in general education classes, especially for students with intellectual disabilities and multiple disabilities, there should be a discussion of how PA will build capacity for using inclusive best practices.
Another major omission is that there is no mention of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), even though ESSA recognizes UDL as a best practice to improve accessible instruction and assessment for ALL students.
ESSA requires state plans to describe strategies that will improve school conditions by reducing bullying, harassment, overuse of discipline practices that remove students from school, and aversive behavioral interventions. The PA plan does not include any strategies for reducing the use of restraint and seclusion, which are aversive behavioral interventions.