BATON ROUGE, La. — The U.S. Department of Education approved via e-mail on Friday Louisiana's waiver request of assessment, accountability, and reporting requirements under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act.
According to a release from the Louisiana Dept. of Education, this means Louisiana will not require standardized testing for the 2019-2020 school year.
LDOE states that since testing data is required to be used in accountability systems, like Louisiana's annual report cards, the state will also exclude testing data from performance measures for the current school year.
The approval follows an initial request submitted by LDOE earlier this week, as well as an updated request submitted Friday, in response to the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak across the state and nation.
The COVID-19 outbreak in the state closed all public school facilities to students through at least April 13.
Details about next steps will be communicated directly to school leaders, as well as posted to the LDOE's dedicated COVID-19 webpage.