Last month, 15 civil rights, business, and education advocacy organizations sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging the department to share its plans for how states will be expected to administer statewide, summative assessments and to use the results to guide pandemic recovery and address unfinished learning.

“The letter includes recommendations for productive ways to discuss the future of assessments, including recognizing the need for aligned and comparable data at the state level, affirming that assessment data should be a tool for improvement – not a penalty, and publicly promoting the belief that assessments should be designed to benefit all students by advancing racial equity and the achievement of underserved students,” writes Jim Cowen, the executive director of the Collaborative for Student Success, in a Forbes piece discussing the coalition’s actions.

Beyond issues of assessments, student data and school improvement, here are seven other updates from across the country about how states and school systems are confronting the challenges posed by the pandemic and the Delta variant — and working to preserve student learning amid the pandemic:

NEW MEXICO — Educators and Lawmakers Raise Concerns on Extended Learning Time
New Mexico lawmakers raised concerns about the length of the school year for many of the state’s public schools, saying that only 20% of schools required a minimum of 180 instructional days in 2018, prior to the pandemic. A court ruling in the same year focused education officials’ attention on extending the school year, bolstering before and after school programs, and building out summer offerings, though educators say little progress has been made while many of the resources set aside to supplement learning time go untouched.

Read the full article about pandemic learning loss by Joshua Parrish at The 74.