State plan reflects ‘by
Georgians, for Georgians’ process of stakeholder feedback and involvement
MEDIA
CONTACT: Meghan Frick, GaDOE
Communications Office, mfrick@doe.k12.ga.us, 404-463-4246
-Follow GaDOE on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @GeorgiaDeptofEd.
Follow the conversation around ESSA at #ESSAinGA.
June
15, 2017 – Georgia
today released the draft of its state
plan responsive to the Every
Student Succeeds Act, the replacement for the federal law commonly known as
No Child Left Behind.
The
draft
is being posted publicly to give all interested stakeholders time to review the
plan and provide their
feedback. The public-comment period will run for 30 days, closing on July
14, 2017.
“I
deeply appreciate the involvement of many of Georgia’s teachers, parents,
school and district representatives, and community members in the ESSA public
feedback process,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said. “I want to
ask and encourage everyone who has already been involved to stay engaged with
us as this work continues, and for anyone who has not yet been involved, I
would ask you to be a part of the public review process moving forward. We
can’t create a plan that serves students well unless we’re all working
together.”
How
to provide feedback
- Click
here to read Georgia’s ESSA State Plan (Index here)
- Click the following links to access two-page overviews
of key plan areas: Education of
the Whole Child, Accountability,
Assessment, Educator and
Leader Development, Federal
Programs to Support School Improvement
- Visit GaDOE.org/ESSA beginning June 27, 2017 for
a video overview of the plan
- Click
here to give your feedback
- Visit GaDOE.Org/signup to sign up for updates
from GaDOE and stay up-to-date on the ESSA process.
Overview
& moving forward
Broadly,
Georgia’s draft ESSA plan supports a common framework of improvement that
places the whole child at the center, focusing and organizing the work of the
Department and engaging new partners in the school improvement process. It
moves Georgia’s accountability system beyond a focus on test scores alone,
allowing a more holistic view of district and school performance. It takes a more
personalized approach to educational goals and accountability, establishes
ambitious but attainable goals for groups of students, while rewarding schools
that move students academically from one level to the next. The plan supports
the alignment of tools, resources, initiatives, programs, and efforts so they
work in a more effective and efficient way to ultimately impact the classroom.
Georgia
plans to submit its draft ESSA plan to the U.S. Department of Education in
September 2017. An in-depth timeline is available at gadoe.org/ESSA.
Background
information on ESSA
The
Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law in 2015, with bi-partisan
support in Congress. ESSA grants states greater flexibility than its
predecessor, No Child Left Behind, and entrusts them with the responsibility to
develop their own state plans to support education. The statutory requirements
of the law vary in specificity from issue to issue, with significant
flexibility granted in some areas.
Last
summer, the Georgia Department of Education convened groups of stakeholders –
including classroom teachers, students, parents, school- and district-level
leaders, higher-education representatives, business and industry, nonprofit and
civic organizations, and communities – to guide the development of Georgia’s
ESSA state plan.
Those
groups relied directly on feedback from the public – gathered through eight public listening sessions held across the state, an in-depth survey, and
social-media comment sessions – to shape Georgia’s ESSA plan. The GaDOE also
maintained a dedicated email address for ESSA feedback and publicized it
through website postings, social media, partnership with education and advocacy
organizations, and through the in-person feedback sessions. This gave
stakeholders an opportunity to provide open-ended feedback, engage in
conversations, or request additional information. All feedback – through the
in-person events, the survey, the email address and the social-media sessions –
was collected, analyzed, and used to inform the development of Georgia’s state
plan.
More
information is available at GaDOE.org/ESSA. Sign up to receive updates
on the ESSA process at GaDOE.org/signup.
