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Strategic Objective
Equitable Educational Opportunities
Strategic Objective
Progress Update
Throughout FY 2015, the Department continued its efforts to expand equitable educational opportunities through its budget priorities, grants, and initiatives in the P–12 and postsecondary spaces, as well as through interagency collaborations and taskforces.
The Department has placed increased emphasis on ensuring educational equity through forward-looking strategies, such as FY 2016 budget development. For example, the Department proposed investing in equity measures in its FY 2016 budget, with $2.7 billion or almost 12 percent increase for ESEA programs and substantial increases across many programs.
P–12 Education
The Office of Early Learning in the Department’s OESE and the Administration for Children and Families at HHS awarded grants to launch high-quality preschool for 33,000 children from low- to moderate-income families in over 200 communities in the 18 Preschool Development Grants states. The 20 Race to the Top-ELC states have finalized their Annual Performance Reports showing their states’ progress in developing or enhancing their early learning systems. OCR also worked with HHS to develop a policy statement on discipline in early learning environments.
The Department continued to support the SIG program, ESEA Flexibility renewal, and the Excellent Educators for All initiative. On February 9, 2015, the Department published a notice of final regulations (NFRs) for SIG, incorporating changes from the FY 2014 appropriations act and lessons learned from implementation, so that SIG can better support turnaround efforts in the lowest-performing schools. The SIG NFR made slight adjustments to the four historical SIG models and includes three new SIG models: an early learning model, an evidence-based, whole school reform model, and a state-determined whole school reform model.
The Department released guidance for the Excellent Educators for All initiative during FY 2015. The initiative is directly tied to the goal of closing achievement gaps and ensuring equal educational opportunities; it is a three-pronged attempt to support states and districts as they work to ensure that low income students and students of color have equal access to effective and qualified educators. First, the Department required states to submit new Plans to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators (State Plans) in June 2015 and has reviewed and approved the plans of all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. Second, the Department is currently implementing a $4.2 million effort to support an Equitable Access Support Network (EASN) that provides meaningful technical assistance to states in developing and then implementing high quality plans. The Department also created and released state-specific Educator Equity Profiles. The Department sent each state a copy of its CRDC file to facilitate additional state-level data analysis. The Department held a number of webinars with states to ensure they understood how the data could help in developing equity plans.
Also, several offices across the Department continue to be involved in the White House My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which aims to improve educational and other outcomes and reduce involvement with the juvenile and criminal justice systems for boys and young men of color. OSERS worked with OESE to identify districts with the highest numbers of males of color dropping out of school with the goal of providing these districts with technical assistance to support high needs students. OSERS also led a multistate convening to address disproportionate discipline rates for students of color. “Rethink Discipline,” a day-long conference at the White House, was convened by the Department and DOJ in July 2015, bringing together education professionals from across the country to work on strategies for creating positive school climates and implementing effective discipline practices to reduce the overuse of unnecessary out of school suspensions and expulsions and replace these practices with positive alternatives that keep students in school and engaged in learning, but also ensure accountability.
OESE helped launch a new White House Administration initiative, Every Student, Every Day: A National Initiative to Address and Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism. Led by the White House, the Department, HHS, HUD, and DOJ, the administration announced new steps to combat chronic absenteeism and called on states and local communities across the country to join in taking immediate action to address and eliminate chronic absenteeism by at least 10 percent each year, beginning in the current school year (2015–16).
OELA has been working with the White House Task Force on New Americans, particularly on highlighting promising practices for serving ELs, immigrants and refugees. In April, the Task Force released a new report that outlines the federal government’s goals to strengthen its integration efforts nationwide and build welcoming communities. Additionally, the Task Force has launched an “Educational and Linguistic Integration Webinar Series,” which has highlighted the work of researchers and practitioners who are working to support these populations. OELA has also partnered with the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans to launch a set of fact sheets on Black ELs to develop awareness for targeted actions to ensure that group of student receive appropriate attention and support.
The Office of the Secretary supported the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education in its efforts to coordinate across federal agencies to execute Generation Indigenous, or Gen I, an interagency initiative to support Native youth.
OCTAE continued to coordinate the implementation of the P3 initiative, a unique cross-agency initiative that gives state, local, and tribal governments greater flexibility in using their discretionary funds to test innovative strategies for improving results for disconnected youth. The first nine pilots were announced in October 2015. For the next round of P3, OCTAE has published a Notice of Proposed Priorities (NPP). The NPP includes proposed priorities for disconnected youth who are unemployed and not enrolled in education; ELs; individuals with disabilities; homeless; in foster care; involved with the justice system; or immigrants or refugees.
While ESSA will certainly impact much of the Department’s work to promote equity in educational opportunity, the ultimate impacts of the new law are still being evaluated, and plans for implementation have yet to be fully developed. The FY 2016 APR will provide additional detail on the impact of the ESSA.
Higher Education
In FY 2015, OPEPD worked with the Office of the Under Secretary and other offices to develop the America’s College Promise to make two years of community college free for eligible students. OCTAE worked on preparing two solicitations related to reentry education.
The Department published a notice announcing a First in the World grant competition on May 11, 2015. The program is designed to promote evidence-based strategies and practices for college access and completion, focusing on high-need students. The $60 million appropriated for this program was used to make 18 grants to IHEs, including 9 grants to minority-serving institutions totaling $30 million. Two of the awards were Validation grants designed to replicate strategies proven to be successful in earlier evaluations.
SIP supports eligible IHEs in becoming self-sufficient and expanding their capacity to serve low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen the institution’s academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability.
In an effort to scale up successful practices that lead to completion, especially in the area of remedial education, the Department developed communities of practice among minority-serving community colleges. Lead institutions have been identified, recruited, and trained. Two communities of practice have been launched as of October 2015. The Department convened these communities of practice and others in November 2015 for the Student Success at Minority Serving Institutions conference.
OCR and FSA continue to support the President’s Sexual Assault Task Force to improve coordination, transparency, and effectiveness in responding to sexual violence in colleges and universities. The Task Force released a Resource Guide in September 2015, and is developing plans for the coming months, including a focus on technical assistance/regional convenings, research initiatives, and training/prevention at the P–12 level.
OCTAE and OCR are developing joint guidance to assist high schools, community colleges, other CTE providers, and state agencies in meeting their obligations under federal law to administer and oversee CTE programs, without discriminating on the basis of gender. OCTAE is working as well with FSA to promote greater awareness of new ability to benefit provisions that enable adults who lack a high school diploma or its equivalent to access student financial aid if they are enrolled in qualifying career pathway program.
