By Dale Chu
The Monday of the week leading into Thanksgiving, the U.S. Department of Education (USED) issued a “Dear Colleague” letter announcing changes to the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA), the federal government’s underwhelming-to-date mechanism for encouraging states to pilot, develop, and deploy the next generation of state assessments. Under the current administration, Uncle Sam has been, at best, lukewarm to testing, but ultimately the signals being sent from D.C. are a matter of interpretation.
For instance, KnowledgeWorks takes a rosier view of the recent guidance. USED adopted several provisions that groups like KnowledgeWorks have long advocated for, including a planning phase for states considering IADA, removing the seven-state participation cap, and importantly, more flexibility in how states can demonstrate comparability to current state tests—a sticking point that has, as many have argued, stifled innovation. Indeed, it seems as if Uncle Sam is finally stepping up.
On the other hand, there are reasons to be skeptical. Notably, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s cryptic line: “We cannot expect innovation from the field of education while protecting the status quo from Washington, D.C.” Why not? Putting innovation at odds with the current assessment regime—and the essential equity guardrails they afford—is a myopic way to frame the pursuit of better measurement tools. Besides which, with or without IADA, states are, for better or worse, exploring some novel approaches to testing.
And what’s with timing this announcement right before the holidays? The Thanksgiving-Christmas vortex is—to say the least—a suboptimal period for making significant policy shifts. Was this intentional on USED’s part or not very well considered or thought out? Ambiguity can create confusion and result in wrong conclusions. To wit, anti-testing proponents—who undoubtedly sense some ambivalence—could attempt to seize this letter as additional ammunition in service of realizing the ultimate dream, in their minds, of removing the requirement for annual testing under federal law. Reasonable people can debate the merits, but doing so without a credible alternative in place would be foolhardy.
But taking a step back, what Cardona is messaging here probably won’t make much of a difference. There’s no new money for the program and USED has made no promises that new funding will be made available. Just seven states—Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and North Carolina—have applied, and two have since dropped out (Georgia and New Hampshire). Hawaii and Indiana are still waiting to be greenlit. So even without the cap, there are only three states in the IADA pool. That’s unlikely to change much until Congress intervenes.
In the meantime, if the over/under on new states signing on following USED’s new guidance is three, my money’s on the under.