See Which States Want Ed. Dept.’s OK to Change Testing, Federal School Funding

Funding request: Consolidate federal money earmarked for improving teacher quality, English-learner services, after-school and extended-day programs, and student support and academic enrichment to use on state-specified school improvement activities.

Testing request: Require every student to take both the ACT (a college-entrance exam) and the ACT WorkKeys exam (which tests career readiness), instead of just the ACT.

State rationale: The testing change will help give school, district, and state leaders a broader picture of what students know and are able to do, said Eric Mackey, Alabama’s state superintendent of education. “We only give schools credit for how many kids they get to college proficiency,” he said. “[We have] this whole group of other students doing good work that doesn’t get measured.”

Status: In process

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Testing request, 3rd grade: Replace the state’s current 3rd grade reading test—the Idaho Standards Achievement Test—with the Idaho Reading Screener, which is used in part to identify students with learning differences such as dyslexia but which the state argues is aligned with tests Idaho schools use for younger students and can thus show whether students are making reading progress.

Testing request, high school: Allow high schoolers to choose their own assessment from a menu of state-approved tests based on their postsecondary goals. Approved tests could include the state’s current test for 11th graders, the SAT, the ACT, the Classic Learning Test, ACT’s WorkKeys (a career-readiness test), and the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB).

State rationale: Allowing high schoolers to choose their own assessment will give them some “skin in the game” when it comes to performing well on the test, said Debbie Critchfield, Idaho’s superintendent of public instruction.

Status: In process

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School improvement request: Spend the state’s $25 million in school improvement funding—a portion of Title I money states must set aside for low-performing schools—directly on the students attending underperforming schools or zoned to attend them, and not necessarily on the schools themselves. The state could use it on academic support services for high school students who attend a low-performing middle school, for example, or on a charter school that takes in students zoned to attend an underperforming school, according to Indiana’s application.

Accountability: Align its system that grades school performance on an A-F scale with a new state system for identifying school performance recently approved by the Indiana board of education.

State funding request: Consolidate state administrative funds and state-level federal formula funds for state assessments, migrant students, neglected and delinquent children, teacher quality, English learners, student support and academic enrichment, and extended-day programs for use on statewide priorities.

District funding request: Allow school districts to consolidate funding for grants for disadvantaged students, neglected and delinquent children, teacher quality, English learners, student support and academic enrichment, rural education, and extended-day programs.

State rationale: “With the opportunity to return education back to the states, we had a clear choice to make in Indiana: continue with the status quo or seize this moment to gain the flexibilities needed to remove federal barriers to more urgently move the needle for students,” said Katie Jenner, Indiana’s education secretary, in a statement.

Status: In process

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Funding change: Received permission in January to combine the state portion of funds from four major federal programs—for teacher quality, student support and academic enrichment, extended-day programs, and English learners—into a single pool. The state must spend the money on activities that meet the requirements of at least one of the consolidated individual federal programs.

State rationale: As a result of the waiver, Iowa will begin shifting money and staff time “from bureaucracy” to “the classroom,” said Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, in a press conference with McMahon when the flexibility was approved. “This means greater flexibility to strengthen the teacher pipeline, narrow student-achievement gaps, and really continue our work to expand evidence-based instruction in both math and reading.”

Status: Approved, Jan. 7, 2026

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School improvement request: Sought the option to pause the identification of schools in need of improvement as the state transitions to a new accountability system.

State rationale: Renee Nugent, Kansas’ deputy education commissioner, said in October that the move was about “coherence and stability. … By aligning our state and federal systems, we are removing barriers and ensuring every Kansas school is working from the same set of goals.”

Status: Kansas plans to withdraw this request. The state learned through communication with the federal Education Department that it had the flexibility it needed without securing a waiver, a state department of education spokesperson said.

Funding request: Combine the state portion of the funding it receives from eight federal funding streams under ESSA into a single pot of money that can be used for statewide school improvement activities. The funding streams include formula grants for disadvantaged students, migrant children, neglected and delinquent students, teacher quality, English learners, student support and academic enrichment, extended-learning programs, and rural students. The state portion, 5% from each fund, works out to more than $25 million.

State rationale: The move would “make our jobs a little bit easier, and it does help us save a little bit of money that we can further push into the classroom,” said Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s superintendent of public instruction.

Status: In process

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Testing request: Would have allowed the state to bypass ESSA’s quality controls for assessments aimed at ensuring state tests are comparable from school to school and aligned with the state’s academic standards.

State rationale: The request, introduced last summer, “reflects Oklahoma’s commitment to modernizing assessment strategies while upholding instructional rigor, accessibility, and valid measurement for accountability,” the state wrote in its request.

Status: On hold since Ryan Walters, the elected state superintendent, stepped down from his role last fall.

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