ESSA Update: August 29, 2018

North Star public release tomorrow

The Minnesota Department of Education is about to publicly release the 2018 North Star accountability results! This is a milestone that you and your colleagues played a crucial role in bringing about, through your participation, feedback and advocacy over the past two years. We have been working with districts and news media over the summer to help them understand how the North Star accountability system differs from the Multiple Measurements Rating under our waiver, and from the days of No Child Left Behind. Of particular importance has been helping them think about accountability as having three important elements: support, recognition and reporting. You may find our growing collection of e-learning modules about North Star interesting as you prepare for our first release of data. 

Tomorrow, we will recognize schools as top performers in the areas of graduation rates, consistent attendance, English language proficiency, and progress on math and reading tests over time. We will also prioritize schools to receive varying levels of support from our MDE and our Regional Centers of Excellence over the next three years. We will add new reports to our Minnesota Report Card to help families see and understand North Star results for their schools. Additional reporting enhancements are coming later this year, and into 2019. 

Below are details about a stakeholder meeting next month. We would like to walk you through the results of our shared work, and hear your thoughts about North Star. We will also continue the important discussion of enhancing and making more transparent the public reporting around school finance.

We all thank you for the work you put in to making this system come to be!

Join us September 24 for an ESSA stakeholder meeting

The first full year of ESSA implementation has begun, but we still have work to do! Please join us for an ESSA stakeholder meeting, which will include:

• A brief overview of 2018 accountability results.
• Opportunity to provide feedback on school identification and recognition.
• Kickoff of phase 3 of stakeholder engagement, focused on fiscal transparency reporting.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, September 24 in Rooms 15-16, Conference Center B at the Minnesota Department of Education office in Roseville.

Questions? Contact mde.essa@state.mn.us