Response GAN Conditions

August 29, 2025

Via email: esea.assessment@ed.gov

Hayley B. Sanon, Acting Assistant Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Assistant Secretary Sanon:

Subject: Response to Grant Award Notification Conditions

The California Department of Education (CDE) and the California State Board of Education (collectively, California) received the Title I, Part A Grant Award Notification for the 2025–26 budget period from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). On Attachment T- Fiscal Year 2025, the notice stated that the State has not yet come into compliance with the requirement of Title I of the Elementary Secondary Education Act of 1965 that limits the percentage of students that a State may assess with an alternate assessment based on academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS) to no more than 1.0 percent of all assessed students in the grades assessed in the State under section 1111(b)(2)(D)(i)(I).

ED originally placed a condition on California’s Title I, Part A grant award in a letter dated June 4, 2019. In accordance with law, local Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) teams determine the appropriate assessment for each child. As a result, the condition has persisted.To remove the condition, ED says that the CDE must:

1. By no later than August 31, 2025, submit an updated plan for reducing the rate of AA-AAAS participation in future years to comply with the 1.0 percent requirement. This plan should include information on the State’s progress on the previously submitted plan.
   
2. Submit evidence that the plan and timeline are made publicly available on the State’s website when the plan is provided to the ED.
3. Demonstrate substantial progress in reducing the percentage of students tested on the alternate assessments in the 2024–25 school year as validated by the State EDFacts.
   

California intends to meet the requirements necessary for the removal of the condition placed on its Title I, Part A grant award and provide ED updates to its compliance plan and timeline as set forth below (table 1 of Attachment 1). This letter and the updates to the compliance plan and timeline are posted on the Every Student Succeeds Act webpage on the CDE website at https://www.cde.ca.gov/re/es/.

While California intends to comply with federal law, we also want to note that the purpose of the alternate assessments is to ensure that children are appropriately assessed in a one-on-one setting with authentic tasks so that they can show what they know and be better supported in their learning and development. Our primary concern, like that of all educators, must be focused on the needs of our students and deference to the individuals on the IEP team who are closest to the student regarding what is most appropriate for that individual, including what assessments are most appropriate for that individual.

The increased need for special education supports, including alternate assessments among others, is indicated by the increase in the number of students with disabilities in our student population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates, for example, that the prevalence of autism among U.S. children has risen from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 31 children in 2022, and 1 in 19 children in California. As reported by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, California’s rates of autism spectrum disorder are 63 percent higher than the national average and the highest in the nation.

According to the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), these increasing rates of autism are associated with exposure to air pollution, pesticides, or other toxins; prematurity or very low birth weight; and parental age, nutrition, and health, among other contributing factors. More information can be found on the NIEHS Autism web page at https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/conditions/autism.

Many of the environmental conditions associated with this increase and that of other disabilities are more pronounced for children living in poverty. California schools serve a large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged students—the proportion of tested students who are low-income increased from 58 percent to 63 percent in the four years from 2019 and 2023—which also impacts the proportion of students identified as students with disabilities. Research consistently indicates a correlation between poverty and student identification for special education programs. This association is complex, influenced by factors such as less access to maternal and child nutrition and healthcare, environmental stressors associated with poverty, and limited access to early childhood education. While California has taken steps to ensure the appropriate assessment of all students, including its students with disabilities, by making assessments more accessible, we want to ensure that students who need access to alternate assessments are able to participate in them, so all California students can demonstrate what they know.

Recognizing the tension between students’ needs, educators’ concerns to understand true student learning, and the administration of the federal rule, the CDE continues to implement system improvements and monitor future administrations to avoid exceeding the 1.0 percent cap. The CDE also continues to improve the implementation of its guidelines for participation in the AA-AAAS.

With feedback from interest holders, an updated Alternate Assessment Decision Confirmation Worksheet was posted in April 2025 on the CDE California Alternate Assessments (CAAs) for English Language Art/Literacy and Mathematics web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/altassessment.asp and on the CDE CAA for Science web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/caascience.asp. The CDE continues to expand and leverage existing outreach efforts to local educational agencies (LEAs), such as workshops, conferences, newsletters, and other communications, to promote understanding and use of this decision-making tool. To date, this worksheet has been shared at CDE’s Pretest Workshop, the California Assessment Conference, the California Association of Bilingual Educators Conference, the California Association of Resource Specialists and Special Education Teachers, and the California All Titles Conference. In addition, California is part of the Council of Chief State School Officers Collaboratives and participates in the Assessing Special Education Students (ASES) meetings. ASES meets three times annually with experts in the fields of assessment and special education from the states to identify challenges and find solutions for the inclusion of students with disabilities through policy and practice.

The CDE continues to monitor and regularly evaluate each LEA to ensure that the LEA provides sufficient training to school staff who participate as members of an IEP team to understand and implement the guidelines established by the State for participation in an AA-AAAS and that all students are appropriately assessed. In addition, the assessment office monitors the percentage of students eligible for alternate assessments before and during testing and collaborates with the special education office to support the monitoring of LEAs that exceed the 1.0 percent cap.

California’s special education monitoring framework uses a tiered system that differentiates the level of monitoring and technical assistance for each LEA to determine the LEA’s need for support and intervention. At the core of the monitoring framework is the Compliance and Improvement Monitoring (CIM) process. LEAs in Targeted or Intensive Monitoring Levels for performance are required to participate in and complete the CIM process as part of their ongoing annual monitoring activity. The CIM process is a series of steps and activities that identify LEAs that need assistance with correction, improvement, and the development of an integrated action plan to address the identified problems of practice. All LEAs participate in and complete the CIM process, which includes review of participation in the CAAs as part of the student record review, and requires creation of an action plan to address any specific area of need.

In addition, the CDE continues to administer the annual 1.0 Percent Reporting Requirement and Justification Survey. In the 2021–22 school year, about 500 LEAs (approximately 25 percent) did not complete the survey. In the 2024–25 school year, only 179 out of about 2,000 LEAs (approximately 9 percent) did not complete the survey. The survey has a response rate of over 91%. The CDE and its testing contractor continue outreach efforts to ensure that all LEAs have the opportunity to provide responses to the survey which aids the CDE in identifying gaps in knowledge or familiarity with testing options and to limit the use of AA-AAAS to students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.

The CDE continues to engage with LEAs that exceeded the 1.0 percent threshold. That engagement includes but is not limited to the dissemination of information on the appropriate identification of students, the dissemination of general IEP team guidance, the use of targeted strategies for confirming and reducing participation rates in the alternate assessment, and the use of potential findings of noncompliance.

In addition, the CDE continues to provide a reporting feature on the home page of the LEA Test Operations Management System that displays the percentage of students assigned the alternate assessment over the prior three years at the LEA and state levels. This longitudinal data provides LEA testing coordinators with quick and easy access to metrics to help them identify trends in their assignment of the alternate assessment and note where more than 1.0 percent of the students are assigned the alternate assessment. The 1.0 Percent Reporting Requirement and Justification Survey is linked alongside this report, which helps LEAs understand the considerations surrounding appropriate test assignments.

California has and will continue to work with our LEA partners and interest holders to ensure maximum participation rates and that every student is taking the most appropriate assessment based on individual needs. Although California narrowly exceeded the 1.0 percent threshold set by ED, it asserts that students who took the AA-AAAS-based assessments were tested appropriately and in compliance with federal law as determined by each student’s IEP team. This is a discussion that takes place at the local level and considers individual student needs as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and/or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

For questions related to this letter, please contact Mao Vang, Director, Assessment Development and Administration Division, at 916-324-9566 or mvang@cde.ca.gov.

TT/LDH:

cc: oese.titlei-a@ed.gov
Natasha Middleton, Federal Policy Liaison, California Department of Education

Attachment 1

Table 1 provides an updated plan of actions for reducing the participation rate of students assessed with an alternate assessment based on academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS) in future years to comply with the 1.0 percent cap requirement. The plan includes information on California’s progress on the previously submitted plan.

Table 1. Update to California’s Plan and Timeline

Tables 2-4 provide the California Alternate Assessments (CAA) for English language arts/literacy (ELA), mathematics, and science participation rates by student group for 2023–24 and 2024–25.

Table 2. CAA for ELA Participation Rates by Student Group for 2023–24 and 2024–25

Table 3 CAA for Mathematics Participation Rates by Student Group for  2023–24 and 2024–25

Table 4 CAA for Science Participation Rates by Student Group for 2023–24 and 2024–25