Walking a Fine Line: School Climate Surveys in State ESSA Plans

School climate and student engagement have emerged as key elements in promoting academic success. Recognizing this, drafters of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) required states to include non-academic factors in judging schools’ performance. To evaluate states’ use of school climate surveys under ESSA, FutureEd examined state accountability plans approved by the U.S. Department of Education, and interviewed state officials to determine why they chose to hold schools accountable for climate and engagement, what precisely they are measuring, and how they are using the results to calculate a score as part of an accountability rubric used to identify struggling schools.