First 100 Days Recommendations: Memo to the Trump-Vance Transition Team

The Aurora Institute has prepared this memo to the incoming Trump-Vance Administration.

The Aurora Institute (Aurora) is a national nonprofit working to drive the transformation of K-12 education systems and accelerate the advancement of breakthrough policies and practices to ensure high-quality learning for all. Aurora believes the Trump-Vance administration has an opportunity to transform traditional approaches to K-12 education to better meet the needs of all students, and improve our nation’s growth and competitiveness. 

The United States continues to rank behind other developed nations on international exams–including ranking 26th in mathematics in 2022. If we want to prepare our young people to compete in an increasingly complex and global economy, we cannot continue operating our K-12 system the same way we have for decades.

To effectively prepare more learners for college, the workforce, and leadership in a variety of contexts, students must be at the center of their learning experiences. Creating learner-centered education systems requires fundamental system-wide shifts. Your administration can set the agenda for rethinking K-12 education and how that system interacts with the world outside the classroom. 

In September, Aurora released a set of Federal Policy Priorities and Recommendations. While states and local communities drive much of education policy, the federal government has an important role to play in fostering systems transformation. This memo recommends actions your administration can take in the first 100 days to make a difference immediately and set the administration on a path for creating the conditions for systems transformation.

1. Promote Assessment Innovation

Balanced assessment systems support meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experiences for students and yield timely, relevant, and actionable evidence. Achieving balanced systems of assessments will require diversifying the federal focus on large-scale summative assessments toward encouraging greater investment in innovation around a variety of assessment types with different purposes. In the first 100 days the administration can:

• Promote Greater Flexibility for IADA. The Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was an important first step toward enabling states to promote and adopt assessment innovations. As states have pursued IADA, however, they have faced unanticipated bureaucratic barriers that have stifled innovation. The administration should write a Dear Colleague letter to state education agencies that outlines greater opportunities for state flexibility and innovation within IADA. The administration should also urge Congress to swiftly address IADA’s shortcomings so that states can more easily develop and adopt innovative models for reforming assessments when Congress updates the ESEA. 
• Revamp the USED assessment peer review process. All statewide summative assessments that are used for federal accountability purposes are evaluated through a USED-run assessment peer review process. While the intent of the process is to ensure these assessments are technically sound, the current process is perceived as a barrier to innovation. To encourage states to develop and adopt innovative assessments for federal accountability purposes, the administration should update its peer review requirements to more explicitly signal the opportunities for assessment innovation within current federal law and policy. The administration should bring together a group of innovative psychometricians and field-based practitioners to revise the Assessment Peer Review Guidance and provide clarity on what is possible with respect to technical considerations such as alignment, comparability, depth, and breadth. In addition to providing a path for approval for innovative assessment approaches, this would clearly signal the administration’s commitment to innovation to the field. 
• Ask Congress to Increase Funding for Assessment Innovation. To ensure the development and implementation of innovative assessments, the administration should work with Congress to increase dedicated funding for assessment innovation. Over a decade ago, Congress allocated $350 million to two state consortia to develop new summative assessments aligned to state standards. Today, only about $20 million is available annually for innovation, but the need for investment is greater than ever. Rather than a large one-time investment, the federal government should set aside consistent and increased funding for innovative assessments to support sustained progress at the state and local levels.

  

2. Prioritize Support for Out-of-School Learning Opportunities

Competency-based education systems recognize learning that happens beyond the classroom, often called “anytime, anywhere learning.” This means students receive recognition or credit for learning that takes place outside of the traditional school setting, including work-based, after-school, and summer learning. In the first 100 days the administration can: 

• Develop and Disseminate Guidance for Employers to Support Work-Based Learning. There is an opportunity to strengthen current systems to better foster work-based learning experiences for students that allow them to earn credit while obtaining career-specific skills. To encourage employers to participate in work-based learning programs, the administration should support the development and dissemination of frameworks for how employers can provide meaningful career exposure opportunities for learners. Such guidance could include concrete examples of solutions to challenges such as liability insurance and workers’ compensation insurance coverage for work-based learning students.
• Host a Cross-Agency Summit to Foster Collaboration. The administration should bring together relevant agencies to develop a strategy for ongoing coordination across agencies to better support the kindergarten through– career pipeline. This could include a strategy to provide federal grants to promote innovative state and regional work-based learning models and competency-based pathways programs that span PK-12, CTE, post-secondary education, and industry/workforce. Such grants could prioritize competency-based credentials and/or micro-credentials that recognize and validate learning anytime, anywhere and the need to bridge these systems with institutions of higher education. These systems could put students on connected and coherent career pathways that are relevant for skills-based hiring initiatives.
• Ask Congress to Increase Funding for After-School and Summer Learning Programs. Post pandemic academic recovery remains unacceptably stagnant and students need additional support to make the progress they deserve. To ensure equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities beyond the classroom, the administration should ask Congress to increase and sustain funding for after-school and summer learning programs, particularly in traditionally underserved communities. This would signal the administration’s deep commitment to ensuring students continue to get the support they need, particularly as ESSER funding expires.

3. Support Innovation and Continuous Improvement Through R&D

Effective research and development (R&D) strategies, designed and implemented in partnership with educators and local communities, are critical to supporting the transformation to learner-centered, competency-based education. With often limited resources for R&D at the state and local levels, federal funding is critical to support education innovation. In the first 100 days the administration can:

• Work with the New IES Director to Create an R&D Center. With the combination of stagnant student progress in math and reading and a rapidly evolving education and workforce landscape, there is an urgent need to better understand what practices are effective for improving student outcomes and opportunities, and where we need to change course. The administration should work with other federal policymakers to create a center within the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) that focuses explicitly on education R&D, similar to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA. Current federal education R&D spending levels are only a fraction of the billions spent on R&D in other sectors. The administration could initiate discussions with Congress about increasing funding to adequately cover R&D costs in education through the newly created center.

  

4. Support Aligned Accountability and Data Systems

Effective state accountability and data systems align with state visions for what their graduates need to know and be able to do, such as a states’ Portrait of a Graduate. This alignment ensures states are collecting the information they need to determine whether students are on the path to meeting rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions), and holding school systems accountable for that student progress. Effective data systems that span beyond K-12 are essential for creating a successful transition from education to the workforce. In the first 100 days the administration can: 

• Ask Congress to Increase Investment in Statewide Data Systems. The administration should ask Congress to increase funding to modernize statewide data systems that are linked, open, and interoperable across education and workforce sectors. Such data systems would support the development and implementation of innovative, competency-based education and employment practices, such as aligned PK-12, CTE, and workforce pathways. Data systems should support pathways and learning and employment records, as well as competency-based and skills-based credentials that lead to sustainable employment. Funding requests can be made in connection with bipartisan discussions Congress is having to reauthorize bills such as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the Education Sciences Reform Act.

5. Promote Digital Access, Digital Literacy, and Student Privacy & Cybersecurity

Access to technology is no longer an optional part of a student’s educational experience. Our ability to give students the tools they need to learn and measure student academic progress relies on an effective technology infrastructure. This means ensuring educators and students not only have access to secure broadband, connected devices, and other related technologies, but that they are also given the support they need to use these resources effectively, securely, and safely. In the first 100 days the administration can:

• Publicly Support E-Rate. The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) vitally important E-Rate program helps ensure all schools continue to have high-capacity broadband and connected devices for students wherever they need it. As part of supporting E-Rate, the administration should support the use of data from the FCC’s new K-12 School and Library Cybersecurity Pilot Program to modernize the E-Rate program to allow program funds to be used for bolstering schools’ cybersecurity.
• Ask Congress to Invest in Digital Learning and Privacy Support. There are multiple opportunities for Congress to provide funding to ensure both access to resources and support for using them, including:
  • Authorizing and expanding the USED’s Privacy Technical Assistance Center to provide additional assistance to school districts and other stakeholders working to address privacy and compliance issues.
  • Restoring funding to the Affordable Connectivity Program so that all families have access to home broadband for learning.
  • Providing new investments for the design and implementation of digital media literacy curriculum and related educational materials that support the effective, secure, and safe use of technology.