The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the main federal law for K-12 public education, aims to ensure all children get a quality education. The law requires that states hold public schools accountable for how students achieve. ESSA does give states flexibility—their accountability systems can measure much more than just test scores.
For more information on New York State’s ESSA Plan, visit the New York State Approved ESSA Plan page. For more information on assessment and accountability waiver requests the United States Department of Education, visit the ESSA Assessments and Accountability Waivers page.
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has established a set of indicators to measure school performance. NYSED developed these indicators with the input of thousands of people statewide—parents, educators, and experts. The indicators include:
To view recent webinars on how accountability determinations were calculated, please visit the NYSED ESSA Accountability Webinars webpage.
For a detailed explanation of how each accountability indicator is calculated and other calculation methodology related to New York State's ESSA accountability system, please review the resource:
The chart below shows the accountability indicators used to calculate accountability determinations for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years (SY) based on 2022-23 and 2023-24 SY results, respectively. The Student Growth measure at the elementary/middle level and the College, Career, and Civic Readiness (CCCR) measure at the high school level are not used for accountability determinations calculations, but are provided for informational purposes only:
English Language Proficiency