Trump Team Hurries to Soothe States Worried About ESSA

(Edweek) by Alyson Klein.

The Trump administration is under pressure to explain its extensive early feedback on state plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, and it appears to be responding.

Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement Friday that the feedback letters “raised some concerns” among his members. And Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., an ESSA architect and an ally of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, said last week he’d be taking a close look at the feedback.

The U.S. Department of Education responded to these concerns at the end of last week, publishing a list of Frequently Asked Questions that seeks to explain exactly what its letters to three states—the first feedback states have gotten from the Trump team on ESSA—actually meant when it comes to DeVos’ approach to the law.

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