EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT
Assessments under Title I, Part A & Title I, Part B: Summary of Final Regulations
High-quality assessments are essential to effectively educating students, measuring progress, and
promoting equity. Done well and thoughtfully, they provide critical information for educators, families,
the public, and students themselves and create the basis for improving outcomes for all learners. Done
poorly, in excess, or without clear purpose, however, they take valuable time away from teaching and
learning, and may drain creative approaches from our classrooms. In October 2015, President Obama
announced a Testing Action Plan
to restore balance to America’s classrooms by ensuring fewer, better,
and fairer tests.
Consistent with the President’s plan, and as the U.S. Department of Education (Department) supports
states in implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), we are focused on promoting a high-
quality, well-rounded education for every student while ensuring critical protections and equity of
opportunity for all students.
Today, the Department is releasing two Notices of Final Regulations (NFRs) that implement provisions of
Title I of the ESSA, ensuring states administer high-quality, annual assessments that are worth taking and
provide meaningful data about student success, while also encouraging states and districts to continue to
push the field of assessment forward through innovation.
The Title I, part A NFR
addresses annual statewide assessments, with the goals of clarifying new
flexibilities for states and districts to reduce testing; maintaining effective protections to preserve
students’ civil rights to ensure assessments are fair; and maximizing the positive impact of transparent,
consistent information about student success and progress. The
Title I, part B NFR outlines how States
can leverage the new innovative assessment demonstration authority in the ESSA, which will enable
up to seven states to re-think their testing systems and pilot new approaches—helping to develop the next
generation of statewide assessments.
“High-quality assessments are a critical tool that can help educators, parents, and policymakers promote
educational equity by highlighting achievement gaps, especially for our traditionally underserved
students, and that can spur instructional improvements that benefit all our children. At the same
time, where too much focus has been placed on testing, educators, parents, and students have rightly
highlighted the need for more creativity and innovation,” said U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King
Jr. “Our final regulations strike a balance by offering states flexibility to eliminate redundant testing and
promote innovative assessments, while ensuring assessments continue to contribute to a well-rounded
picture of how students and schools are doing.”
Background on ESSA’s Testing Provisions
Passage of the ESSA
Passed with bipartisan support and signed by President Obama in December 2015, the ESSA requires
states and districts to ensure that all students, including children with disabilities, English learners, and
other historically underserved groups, graduate high school ready for college or a career. To measure
progress against that goal and maintain a critical focus on educational equity and excellence for all, the
law maintains the requirement that states administer to all students annual statewide assessments in
reading/language arts and mathematics in grades 3-8 and once in high school, as well as assessments once
in each grade span in science for all students and annual English language proficiency assessments in
grades K-12 for all English learners. The law also includes important protections to ensure that all
students are tested, offered appropriate accommodations when needed, and held to the same high
standards. The ESSA also provides several new flexibilities to help states develop innovative approaches
to assessments and reduce duplicative, unnecessary testing.