August

10, 2018

Electronic Mail: Betsy.DeVos@ed.gov

The Honorable Betsy DeVos

Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue., SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary DeVos,

Achieving excellence in education means putting all children first and ensuring they have the necessary
resources to succeed academically. As you are aware, Florida is the only state still waiting for federal
approval of its plan to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). We are writing you today to
request that you continue to withhold approval of Florida’s plan submitted on April 20, 2018, until it is
revised to fully comply with the ESSA requirements as adopted by Congress. As Florida’s plan currently
stands it excludes critical protections for English learners, students with disabilities, students of color,
and low-income students that will widen achievement gaps instead of closing them.

As federal law requires, Florida's plan still needs to do the following to hold educators accountable
under ESSA:

• Disaggregate student performance by including calculations for subgroups of students (all major
racial and ethnic groups, students with disabilities, low-income students and English learners) in
the accountability system.
• Include English language proficiency as an indicator in the accountability system.
• Make native language assessments in the content areas available.
• Include all students, subgroups, schools, districts, assessments, rewards, support and sanctions
in Florida's single statewide A-F accountability system.

If you were to grade Florida's performance thus far it would be: Incomplete. Since the State of Florida
began the ESSA plan writing process in the summer of 2016, our organizations have tried on numerous
occasions to work with the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) to ensure that the plan includes
the abovementioned elements thereby fully complying with ESSA.

Despite feedback from your office and requests from stakeholders, like us, Florida’s plan still does not
address key ESSA provisions. The FLDOE has ignored input from numerous stakeholders and defied
compliance with ESSA at every step of the plan writing process:

• Summer of 2017 – FLDOE made public but never submitted a set of proposed waiver requests.
• September 20, 2017 – FLDOE submitted the Florida ESSA plan to the US Department of
Education (USED) that did not include the waiver requests but instead simply folded these
deviations from ESSA requirements into its plan.
• December 19, 2017 – USED sent Florida an interim feedback letter that outlined the ways in
which Florida's submitted plan does not meet all applicable statutory and regulatory
requirements.
 • April 20, 2018 – FLDOE resubmitted the Florida ESSA plan to USED but still failed to fully comply
with federal law. Most notably, the revised plan audaciously created a wholly separate "federal
index" outside of its A-F accountability system.
• June 5, 2018 – The USED sent the FLDOE a letter asking for a status update on submitting "a
revised consolidated State plan that meets all requirements of the ESEA and the McKinney-
Vento Act."

As of today, the State of Florida has yet to submit a plan that fully complies with ESSA.

Starting next week, Florida’s children will go back to school, yet its schools and students will be graded
under an accountability system that fails to comply with ESSA. Full compliance with ESSA will ensure
accountability for the educational success of all students and that problems will not be ignored or swept
out of sight.

Please continue to enforce that Florida’s plan meet all statutory and regulatory requirements and reject
any revised plan that fails to fully comply with ESSA. Parents and communities deserve to know that
their schools will be held accountable for ensuring the educational success of their children so that all
students will be college and career ready by the time they graduate high school.

Sincerely,

Mari Corugedo, State Director

LULAC Florida

Jared Nordlund, Florida Senior Strategist
UnidosUS



cc:
Rep. Castor
Rep. Curbelo
Rep. Diaz-Balart
Rep. Murphy
Rep. Rooney
Rep. Ros-Lehtinen
Rep. Soto
Rep. Wilson
Sen. Nelson
Sen. Rubio