Giving Compass' Take:

· EdSource discusses the Every Student Succeeds Act and California's revised education plan that will tackle the lowest-performing 5 percent of their low-income schools. After being required to revise this plan twice within the past year, state officials are now confident that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will sign the new plan.

· Will this new plan increase student success in California? Will it promote equity in schools?

· Read about the previous federal questioning of California's education reform plans.

The State Board of Education will likely approve yet another set of revisions to California’s plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act at its meeting in Sacramento — and this time state officials are “very optimistic” that the plan will finally get U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s signature.

The optimism stems from a June 29 letter from Jason Botel, one of DeVos’s top lieutenants, stating that the most recent draft of the plan “appears to meet all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements,” and “I intend to recommend that Secretary DeVos approve the plan.”

If she does, it would end a nearly year-long ordeal during which California twice saw its plan rejected by the U.S. Dept. of Education. The state is currently one of only fivewhose plans have yet to be approved by DeVos.

In the plan, state officials describe how they will improve California’s lowest-performing low-income schools in return for about $2.4 billion in federal funding for low-income children, teacher training and services for migrant children and English learners.

Read the full article about California’s education plan by David Washburn at EdSource.