Giving Compass' Take:

• Blair Mann reports that Florida's ESSA plan has not been approved because it is not in compliance with the law. Failing to achieve compliance will cost the state billions in federal funding. 

• Why didn't Florida build a plan that aligned with the law? 

• Find out what evidence-based means for ESSA. 

On July 12, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos approved the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans submitted by California and Utah, leaving Florida as the last state awaiting approval for its proposed school accountability system under the nation’s new education law.

On first glance, Florida’s inability to win federal approval is puzzling. As the Tampa Bay Times’s Jeffrey Solochek points out, the Trump administration “has in many ways held up Florida’s education system as a model for the nation” and “hired many former Florida education officials to top jobs in its own education department.”

The main points of disagreement between Florida education officials and their federal counterparts are provisions regarding English language learners and demographic-based student subgroups.

The state sought continued use of a combined “super subgroup” that “considers the lowest-performing 25 percent of students in a school (no matter what their race, income, or disability status) rather then look at results for English-learners, students in special education, and racial minorities separately.” This is also now a no-no when it comes to ESSA, which requires states to account for subgroups when determining whether or not a school is “struggling” and in need of assistance.

Absent such approval, Florida “faces several sanctions,” including the federal government withholding more than a billion dollars in funding “to operate its department of education and distribute between its schools.”

Read the full article about Florida's ESSA plan by Blair Mann at The 74.