After two years of stops and starts, the Alabama board of education is expected to approve the state's education plan under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act at the Oct. 12 meeting.

The plan is a road map of sorts, "designed to close achievement gaps, increase equity of instruction and increase outcomes for all students," according to the Alabama State Department of Education web page devoted to ESSA, as the law is called.

ESSA replaced the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Act in December 2015. It passed with strong bipartisan support in what former President Barack Obama called "a Christmas miracle."

Since its passage, education advocates have praised the law's goal of returning control over education to the states.

"This is an opportunity for states to really lead because there's much more flexibility," said Anne Wicks, Director of Education Reform at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas. Wicks is a member of the peer review panel for the Collaborative for Student Success, which, according to Wicks, "is working together to try to decipher what states are doing to articulate their vision for education."

Wicks said, "[ESSA] is really a chance for states to say here's what matters and why, and how we plan to get there."

ESSA requires states to set a vision for education for their state and to lay out plans for measuring outcomes, setting goals, and showing how they plan to achieve those goals. States set their own course for how to intervene when schools are struggling.

That's different than under No Child Left Behind, when the federal government set the goals for outcomes and dictated strategies for schools that didn't meet those outcomes.

Under ESSA, states set their own time frame for long-term goals. Alabama chose 2030, using the logic that a child entering kindergarten in the fall of 2017 should graduate from high school in 2030.

Many of the same mechanisms under NCLB stay in place, including requirements for testing.

States must test students annually in grades 3 through 8 in math and English/language arts again in high school. Students must be tested one time in science in each of three grade spans: grades 3 to 5, grade 6 to 9, and grades 10-12.

Alabama is currently looking for a state assessment to use. In June, the state board of education voted to end the contract with ACT Aspire, in use since 2014. Schools will use Scantron Performance series for spring 2018 testing. About two-thirds of Alabama's schools already used Scantron tests and training is ongoing for schools that haven't previously used that test.

Interim state superintendent Dr. Ed Richardson is assembling a task force to determine what test will be used to measure achievement in 2019 and beyond.

Measures will be used in ways like how they were used NCLB: to identify schools needing support and intervention and publicly report student progress.

ESSA does not require any punitive measures comparable to the "adequate yearly progress" measures under NCLB.

Schools identified as needing support and intervention will be publicly reported, according to the plan, but no "failing" label will be attached.

According to Alabama's plan, academic indicators used to identify schools that need support and intervention include proficiency on math and English/language arts tests, student growth in proficiency, progress for English language learners, and a measure of chronic absenteeism.

Alabama's plan defines chronic absenteeism as the percentage of students having 15 or more absences in a school year. The plan shows 17 percent of students were chronically absent during the 2015-2016 school year. Alabama's goal is to reduce that number to 5 percent by 2030.

Schools with a twelfth grade will also use high school graduation rates (both four- and five-year rates) and measures of college and career readiness as a part of their academic indicator.

Those indicators will be weighted to create a summative rating for each school, district, and the state based on a 100-point scale. No letter grades will be used for accountability under ESSA.

Those ratings will determine if a school needs improvement and support, and if so, which of three levels is needed. The plan states the recently-created Office of School Improvement and Turnaround will provide central support for the neediest schools.

Multiple factors will be considered in determining which schools are in need of the highest level of support, known as comprehensive support, including those identified in the bottom 6 percent of all Title I schools, high schools whose graduation rate is 10 percentage points below the state average graduation rate, or schools with a "consistently underperforming" subgroup.

Subgroups are the same as they were under NCLB: gender, race, ethnicity, disability status, poverty status, migrant status, and English proficiency status.

Alabama defines "consistently underperforming" as "the same subgroup of students that are performing at or below the performance of all students in the lowest performing schools and have not improved over a three-year time frame."

The second level of support, called targeted support, will be given to schools identified annually as having one or more consistently underperforming subgroups. Those schools will first be identified in 2019-2020.

A third level of support, called additional targeted support, will be provided to Title I schools considered low-performing. Those are schools identified as having one or more subgroups of students performing at or below the performance of all students in the lowest performing schools. Those schools will be identified in the 2018-2019 school year, and again every three years.

Additional targeted support schools will be given three years to improve. If they don't, they'll advance to targeted support. If they still don't improve over a three-year period, they'll advance to comprehensive support.

In addition to using academic indicators to determine levels of needed support, schools and districts will be required to publicly report many facets of school performance, including school spending per student.

Test scores, disaggregated by subgroups previously mentioned plus those for homeless students, students in foster care, and children in military families, must be publicly reported.

Because the reporting requirements are part of the actual law, states do not have to include anything about reporting in their plan.

ESSA does not mandate how states must evaluate teachers, but does require states to ensure that high-needs students are not served in disproportionate rates by out-of-field, inexperienced, and ineffective teachers. The number of out-of-field teachers will be publicly reported, according to the plan.

Improving access of high-needs students to effective teachers is a key focus of ESSA, and Alabama's plan describes a number of strategies to recruit and retain teachers in high-needs areas and to improve teacher preparation in colleges and universities in Alabama.

Alabama's plan includes a number of programs to improve school culture and climate, including reducing bullying, reducing the number of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, and provide support for students at risk of not graduating.

The latest plan, dated Oct. 4, is currently posted on the state's web site. The board of education was presented with a plan dated Sept. 27 at their most recent board meeting.

After initially stating there would be no additional public input period, state department officials posted a comment form online on Oct. 5, giving the public until Oct. 12 to submit comments on the latest plan.

Richardson said he expects the 120-day review process to allow for changes to be made even after the plan is approved by the board of education and submitted on Oct. 13.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia submitted their plans to federal education officials in April. Fourteen of those states, along with the District of Columbia, have had their plans approved.

Thirty-two states submitted their plans in September. Alabama and South Carolina are the only two states who have not yet submitted their plans. Both states were given extensions due to recent hurricanes.

Wicks, who will begin reviewing the latest round of state-submitted plans, said she hopes states view ESSA as an opportunity "to explain what matters to them and to the children of the state in their long-term vision."

The plan allows states to articulate that vision, she said, and answers two questions.

"What do they want children in their state to grow up and do as adult citizens in their state? What do they need to do to make that happen?"

Alabama's Oct. 4, 2017, draft plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act by Trisha Powell Crain on Scribd