Arizona schools at risk of losing federal funds over standardized tests [View all]
The federal government has threatened to withhold upwards of $300 million of Arizona’s school funding if the Arizona Department of Education allows schools to choose their own standardized tests for students.
With bipartisan support, lawmakers in 2016 approved a law allowing school districts to offer a “menu of assessments” to choose from, such as the SAT or ACT, rather than one statewide standardized test, currently the AZMerit test.
The law allowed high schools to make the switch this year, and many school districts have already moved away from the AZMerit test in favor of the ACT or SAT. Another portion of the law would have allowed schools teaching grades 3-8 to adopt a menu of assessments next year.
But the state law goes against the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, and the U.S. Department of Education denied Arizona’s request for a waiver to that law to allow the state to implement its “menu of assessments.”
Read more: https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2019/04/05/arizona-schools-at-risk-of-losing-federal-funds-over-standardized-tests/
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