A conversation with U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler
By Dale Chu
At first glance, Kirsten Baesler occupies an unlikely place in today’s education landscape. As the Trump administration works to return education to the states, the Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education has emerged as one of its most forceful advocates for strong assessment and accountability systems.
There’s no contradiction in Kirsten’s mind. Greater flexibility for states, she argues, should be matched by greater responsibility to deliver for students. That’s why she has been unwavering on what she considers the Department’s red lines: no waivers that weaken transparency, obscure performance data, or lower expectations for student achievement. Everything, as she often says, comes down to student academic outcomes.
That perspective is informed by Kirsten’s experience on both sides of the federal-state relationship. Having served as North Dakota’s state chief before joining the Department, she believes many states already possess more authority than they realize, and that Washington’s job is less about prescribing solutions than helping states use the flexibility they already have. I wanted to dig deeper into that philosophy with Kirsten, as well as the implications for assessment and accountability. Here’s what she had to say.
Dale Chu: What is the Department looking for when it comes to ESSA waivers? How does it balance state flexibility with maintaining high standards?
Kirsten Baesler: States are the primary drivers of waiver requests. The Department’s goal is to help states identify where federal requirements are burdensome and getting in the way of improving student outcomes. We’ve been encouraging states to reach out to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education before submitting a waiver, as there may be ways to get to a solution without one. States often have more authority than they realize. Any waiver must demonstrate that it will improve student academic outcomes because that is our highest priority at the Department.
Waivers can create the opportunity for greater flexibility and more autonomy, but with that flexibility and autonomy comes more responsibility. The Department will not support anything that reduces transparency for families, communities, or taxpayers, or that blurs data on how schools are serving students.
Dale: How does the Department view the tradeoffs when states push to measure durable skills and career readiness as a substitute for traditional academic achievement under ESSA’s flexibility provisions?
Kirsten: I don’t think states are looking to substitute traditional academic achievement. They’re looking at it differently. I think states are exploring how to adjust their systems to incentivize greater preparation for student success, a more well-rounded opportunity of choices after graduation.
The Department views career pathways and workforce readiness as a high priority, as evidenced by the Secretary’s supplemental priority in that area. However, the goal is a “both/and” approach. Students should leave high school with strong academic knowledge and skills alongside practical abilities. We shouldn’t be thinking about it in a binary manner. Students should leave high school with strong academic knowledge and skills and abilities that will lead to a healthy, productive life.
There’s a balance that needs to be struck. In the early 2010s, everyone was talking college for all, college for everyone. And I think we went too far in that direction. I don’t think we should go too far in the other direction. There needs to be strong academic knowledge and some usable skills that make students productive.
Dale: Your EdWeek opinion piece addressed the honesty gap (i.e., parents assuming their child is on track even when assessment data suggests otherwise). What can states and the federal government do to bridge that gap?
Kirsten: States must maintain strong assessment and accountability systems that hold students to high expectations and report results honestly. However, the education field must do a much better job communicating results clearly to families. Too few educators at all levels understand the use and purpose of different assessment types—formative, interim, and summative—or even the difference between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessments.
And when we talk about too much assessment, everybody’s saying the same thing along the lines of the piece you recently wrote about how we’re now asking a single assessment to do a lot of different things. I’ll be curious to see how that how that through-year testing goes. But already I’ve heard pushback from some teachers that thought it was going to be much better than it was. When you’re trying to have a single tool be used for accountability and for formative classroom use, that assessment is always going to have to bow to the higher expectation of accountability, which is going to make it less useful.
So I think there are two things that we can actually do: (1) Develop a common language or currency that can be used across states to interpret different cut scores in a way parents can understand, and (2) Continue to use NAEP to keep state cut scores honest.
Dale: When you say a “common currency” for interpreting assessment results, what would you think of replacing state performance labels with something like A-F letter grades?
Kirsten: I don’t know. Letter grades would likely generate significant pushback and resemble a school report card. I’ll tell you what we did in North Dakota to make our summative state assessment more meaningful to our parents. Most North Dakota schools use the NWEA MAP assessment, which produces Lexile and Quantile scores. Students became very familiar with what their Lexile score was, and their Lexile range because that’s how they choose their library books. We contracted with MetaMetrics to map summative assessment cut scores onto Lexile and Quantile scores. This allowed each student’s summative report to include a familiar, cross-context metric.
Dale: How is the Department working with school boards and local leaders to build assessment literacy and ensure data is used effectively to drive instruction?
Kirsten: I love this question because I love this project and I’m so pleased with how successful it has been. At the same time, I don’t think it’s the federal government’s role to bypass state chiefs, governors, and legislatures to work directly with school boards and local leaders. But with that being said, every meeting that I have with state chiefs, with governors, with state legislatures, when they come to the White House for cabinet briefings, I talk to them about the importance of working with their local school board leaders and having their school board leaders understand the assessments that they’re looking at.
In North Dakota, 98 percent of state, federal, and local education funds flow to boards of 5-9 people to make decisions, and I don’t know that figure to be much different in other states. Yet on average less than 2 percent of board meeting time is spent discussing assessment results and student academic outcomes. Imagine if a for-profit company’s board spending only 2 percent of its time on profit and loss and you can see the problem.
Dale: How do you see the Department’s role evolving to support states in ensuring assessment and accountability systems are used to keep the bar high?
Kirsten: The Department’s role is about empowering states, not diminishing their autonomy, while keeping education as close to the child as possible. This does not mean lowering the bar. We cannot scrap traditional academic assessment models or grant states a license to avoid accountability. Improving student academic outcomes remains the highest priority.
Too often teachers are asked to be the Batman or education systems are asked to be the Batman on every mission. And we can’t be. We’ve got to partner. We did it in North Dakota. We’re doing it now at the federal level. We’re asking to partner with our Administration of Children and Families for our 0 to 5 work, for our Promise Neighborhoods work, for our community and schools work. When we get back to the root of what we are doing best, teaching and learning and partnering with our communities and our other sister agencies, both at the federal level and the state level, I think those are the things that anchor me today. Communities, families, and school systems really coming together. That’s the system that we need to build for our children in every state.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
With great flexibility comes great responsibility
A conversation with U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler
By Dale Chu
There’s no contradiction in Kirsten’s mind. Greater flexibility for states, she argues, should be matched by greater responsibility to deliver for students. That’s why she has been unwavering on what she considers the Department’s red lines: no waivers that weaken transparency, obscure performance data, or lower expectations for student achievement. Everything, as she often says, comes down to student academic outcomes.
That perspective is informed by Kirsten’s experience on both sides of the federal-state relationship. Having served as North Dakota’s state chief before joining the Department, she believes many states already possess more authority than they realize, and that Washington’s job is less about prescribing solutions than helping states use the flexibility they already have. I wanted to dig deeper into that philosophy with Kirsten, as well as the implications for assessment and accountability. Here’s what she had to say.
Dale Chu: What is the Department looking for when it comes to ESSA waivers? How does it balance state flexibility with maintaining high standards?
Kirsten Baesler: States are the primary drivers of waiver requests. The Department’s goal is to help states identify where federal requirements are burdensome and getting in the way of improving student outcomes. We’ve been encouraging states to reach out to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education before submitting a waiver, as there may be ways to get to a solution without one. States often have more authority than they realize. Any waiver must demonstrate that it will improve student academic outcomes because that is our highest priority at the Department.
Waivers can create the opportunity for greater flexibility and more autonomy, but with that flexibility and autonomy comes more responsibility. The Department will not support anything that reduces transparency for families, communities, or taxpayers, or that blurs data on how schools are serving students.
Dale: How does the Department view the tradeoffs when states push to measure durable skills and career readiness as a substitute for traditional academic achievement under ESSA’s flexibility provisions?
Kirsten: I don’t think states are looking to substitute traditional academic achievement. They’re looking at it differently. I think states are exploring how to adjust their systems to incentivize greater preparation for student success, a more well-rounded opportunity of choices after graduation.
The Department views career pathways and workforce readiness as a high priority, as evidenced by the Secretary’s supplemental priority in that area. However, the goal is a “both/and” approach. Students should leave high school with strong academic knowledge and skills alongside practical abilities. We shouldn’t be thinking about it in a binary manner. Students should leave high school with strong academic knowledge and skills and abilities that will lead to a healthy, productive life.
There’s a balance that needs to be struck. In the early 2010s, everyone was talking college for all, college for everyone. And I think we went too far in that direction. I don’t think we should go too far in the other direction. There needs to be strong academic knowledge and some usable skills that make students productive.
Dale: Your EdWeek opinion piece addressed the honesty gap (i.e., parents assuming their child is on track even when assessment data suggests otherwise). What can states and the federal government do to bridge that gap?
Kirsten: States must maintain strong assessment and accountability systems that hold students to high expectations and report results honestly. However, the education field must do a much better job communicating results clearly to families. Too few educators at all levels understand the use and purpose of different assessment types—formative, interim, and summative—or even the difference between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessments.
And when we talk about too much assessment, everybody’s saying the same thing along the lines of the piece you recently wrote about how we’re now asking a single assessment to do a lot of different things. I’ll be curious to see how that how that through-year testing goes. But already I’ve heard pushback from some teachers that thought it was going to be much better than it was. When you’re trying to have a single tool be used for accountability and for formative classroom use, that assessment is always going to have to bow to the higher expectation of accountability, which is going to make it less useful.
So I think there are two things that we can actually do: (1) Develop a common language or currency that can be used across states to interpret different cut scores in a way parents can understand, and (2) Continue to use NAEP to keep state cut scores honest.
Dale: When you say a “common currency” for interpreting assessment results, what would you think of replacing state performance labels with something like A-F letter grades?
Kirsten: I don’t know. Letter grades would likely generate significant pushback and resemble a school report card. I’ll tell you what we did in North Dakota to make our summative state assessment more meaningful to our parents. Most North Dakota schools use the NWEA MAP assessment, which produces Lexile and Quantile scores. Students became very familiar with what their Lexile score was, and their Lexile range because that’s how they choose their library books. We contracted with MetaMetrics to map summative assessment cut scores onto Lexile and Quantile scores. This allowed each student’s summative report to include a familiar, cross-context metric.
Dale: How is the Department working with school boards and local leaders to build assessment literacy and ensure data is used effectively to drive instruction?
Kirsten: I love this question because I love this project and I’m so pleased with how successful it has been. At the same time, I don’t think it’s the federal government’s role to bypass state chiefs, governors, and legislatures to work directly with school boards and local leaders. But with that being said, every meeting that I have with state chiefs, with governors, with state legislatures, when they come to the White House for cabinet briefings, I talk to them about the importance of working with their local school board leaders and having their school board leaders understand the assessments that they’re looking at.
In North Dakota, 98 percent of state, federal, and local education funds flow to boards of 5-9 people to make decisions, and I don’t know that figure to be much different in other states. Yet on average less than 2 percent of board meeting time is spent discussing assessment results and student academic outcomes. Imagine if a for-profit company’s board spending only 2 percent of its time on profit and loss and you can see the problem.
Dale: How do you see the Department’s role evolving to support states in ensuring assessment and accountability systems are used to keep the bar high?
Kirsten: The Department’s role is about empowering states, not diminishing their autonomy, while keeping education as close to the child as possible. This does not mean lowering the bar. We cannot scrap traditional academic assessment models or grant states a license to avoid accountability. Improving student academic outcomes remains the highest priority.
Too often teachers are asked to be the Batman or education systems are asked to be the Batman on every mission. And we can’t be. We’ve got to partner. We did it in North Dakota. We’re doing it now at the federal level. We’re asking to partner with our Administration of Children and Families for our 0 to 5 work, for our Promise Neighborhoods work, for our community and schools work. When we get back to the root of what we are doing best, teaching and learning and partnering with our communities and our other sister agencies, both at the federal level and the state level, I think those are the things that anchor me today. Communities, families, and school systems really coming together. That’s the system that we need to build for our children in every state.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.