The Every Student Succeeds Act’s notorious fifth indicator left the door wide open for states to measure student achievement in ways other than academic, but when it came time to choose, social-emotional learning skills were largely ignored.

But just because states don’t include social-emotional learning as an accountability measure doesn’t mean they haven’t incorporated it into their ESSA plans. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning — CASEL — reported, for example, that Massachusetts will include SEL training in its professional development for teachers, Connecticut will use federal funds to improve learning environments in schools, and South Carolina incorporates skills like “self-direction” and “perseverance” in its graduate framework.

“The safest thing is to grade schools based on their participation rates,” Elaine Allensworth, director of UChicago Consortium on School Research, who has been studying Chicago Public Schools’ climate surveys, told The 74. “That’s going to be less likely to potentially corrupt the data.”

Read the full article by Kate Stringer on The 74