Vermont Agency of Education Re-releases State Report Card

Last week, the Vermont Agency of Education released assessment and accountability results from the 2024-2025 school year. As part of preparing system upgrades for the 2026 reporting window, the Agency identified a coding error embedded in the original 2017 system design. The issue has a limited and specific application, affecting the calculation of school designations required by the U.S. Department of Education related to Targeted School Improvement (TSI) and Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI).

Student performance data for the state as well as individual Supervisory Unions and Districts (SU/SDs) and schools remain validated and unchanged. Achievement gaps between students from historically marginalized backgrounds and their peers also remain validated and unchanged. However, a small subset of individual schools may have incorrectly received TSI and ATSI designations dating back to 2017. The Agency has initiated a thorough review of every TSI and ATSI designation since 2017.

Depending on the extent and persistence of performance gaps, schools can be identified as in need of Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI). The State Report Card published by the Agency of Education last week initially included a list of five schools designated as TSI and ATSI schools, as required by Vermont's State ESSA Plan. Because the Agency is currently reviewing every TSI and ATSI designation since 2017, the Agency is publishing an updated version of the State Report Card that removes any reference to TSI and ATSI schools while this review is underway. Validating every TSI and ATSI designation is important and necessary to ensuring schools with widening achievement gaps benefit from targeted support. An update will be published once the review has been completed.

The Agency of Education recognizes that the discovery of a longstanding error affecting federally required TSI and ATSI designations may create confusion about Vermont's statewide accountability system - a system that has been in place since 2017 and is, by nature, complex. Importantly, the Agency is committed to radical transparency in how Vermont's accountability system operates and what it communicates about student achievement and educational quality. It was through this commitment - and a proactive review of system processes and reporting - that the issue was identified. The Agency is addressing the error directly and strengthening internal safeguards to ensure accuracy, clarity, and public confidence in Vermont's accountability system.

In addition to reviewing every TSI and ATSI designation since 2017, the Agency is advancing a series of planned improvements as outlined in the original State Report Card that are designed to accelerate the reporting timeline, expand analysis, and strengthen school improvement support. To this end, the Agency has formed a Technical Advisory Committee to examine improvements to how we measure school quality, including the development of a more sophisticated measure of student learning gains and refinement of additional indicators aligned to college and career readiness.

Vermont's accountability system is designed around the idea that every student can succeed - and that to foster that success, we need to understand which schools and which students need support. The accountability results continue to point to widening achievement gaps in student outcomes across Vermont - patterns that remain validated and unequivocal - and serve as the basis for our collective continuous improvement efforts as a state. A stronger accountability system that Vermonters understand and have confidence in is essential to improving educational outcomes across our state and building the best education system in America.