ACT Aspire testing waiver is in works

The federal government has tentatively approved a waiver of ACT Aspire student testing this spring in Arkansas, which will figure in a school district’s accountability status for the coming school year.

The Arkansas districts that were identified for comprehensive or targeted support for the current 2019-20 school year “will maintain that identification status in the 2020-2021 school year,” Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key wrote to superintendents and principals last week about the federal waiver.

The affected districts — which include the Little Rock and Pine Bluff school districts that are categorized as Level 5/intensive support — will “continue to receive supports and interventions consistent with the school’s improvement plan and the district’s support plan.”

“In other words, identifications for federal support designations will be held constant and no school will be able to exit from support based on 2020 data,” Key wrote in the commissioner’s memo that is posted on the state Elementary and Secondary Education Division website.

A school and school district are identified for the different kinds of state support based on results from the annual Aspire tests, which are given in grades three through 10 in literacy, math and science.

Key and his staff applied for a waiver of the annual testing program early last week in light of the state’s public school buildings being closed for several weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the covid-19 virus.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had earlier invited states to make the waiver applications.

Arkansas students and teachers are currently scheduled to work from home through April 17. The online Aspire testing is typically done in mid-April to early May.