January 23, 2014
The Honorable Arne Duncan
Secretary
United States Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20202
Secretary Duncan:
As chief state school officers in states participating in the two common assessment consortia, we
appreciate your continued leadership and collaboration with states as we work to raise our standards,
improve our assessments, and strengthen our accountability systems.
Our states have been collaborating for the last three years to design and develop next generation,
computer-based assessment systems that will give students, parents and educators better information
about children’s progress toward preparation for college and careers. This work is critically important,
and we are committed to the success of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
Over the last several months, some concerns have been raised about whether states’ transition to the
consortia assessments will create new requirements for states to provide student information to the
U.S. Department of Education (USED) or any agency of the federal government.
We are writing today to confirm that the consortia will not share any personally identifiable
information about K–12 students with USED or any federal agency. Our states have not submitted
student-level assessment data in the past; the transition to the new assessments should not cause
anyone to worry that federal reporting requirements will change when, in fact, the federal government
is prohibited from establishing a student-level database that would contain assessment data for every
student. As we have historically done, our states will continue to provide USED with school-level data
from our state assessments as required under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as
amended in 2002. Our states and local education agencies will continue to retain control over student
assessment data and will continue to comply with all state and federal laws and regulations with regard
to the protection of student privacy.
We understand that it has long been USED’s practice not to require states to provide information from
assessments about individual K-12 students. We are confirming that our states will not provide such
information to USED and that everything we have said here is consistent with our understanding of the
cooperative agreement between the consortia and USED.
Thank you for your consideration and your continued commitment to our states’ success.
Sincerely,
June St. Clair Atkinson
State Superintendent
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
Kirsten Baesler
State Superintendent
North Dakota Department of Public Instruction
Virginia M. Barry, Ph.D.
Commissioner of Education
New Hampshire Department of Education
Brad A. Buck
Director
Iowa Department of Education
Chris Cerf
Commissioner
New Jersey Department of Education
Mitchell Chester
Commissioner
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education
Richard Crandall
Director
Wyoming Department of Education
Randy I. Dorn
Washington State Superintendent
of Public Instruction
Dale Erquiaga
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Nevada Department of Education
Tony Evers
State Superintendent
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Michael P. Flanagan
State Superintendent
Michigan Department of Education
Deborah Gist
Commissioner
Rhode Island Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education Robert K. Hammond
Commissioner
Colorado Department of Education
Rebecca Holcombe
Secretary of Education
Vermont Agency of Education
Kevin Huffman
Commissioner
Tennessee Department of Education
John Huppenthal
State Superintendent
Arizona Department of Education
Denise Juneau
Superintendent
Montana Office of Public Instruction
Tom Kimbrell
Commissioner
Arkansas Department of Education
John B. King, Jr.
Commissioner
New York State Education Department
Christopher Koch
State Superintendent
Illinois State Board of Education
Lillian Lowery
Superintendent of Schools
Maryland State Department of Education
Tom Luna
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Idaho State Department of Education
Kathryn Matayoshi
Superintendent
Hawaii State Department of Education
Mark T. Murphy
Secretary of Education
Delaware Department of Education
Chris L. Nicastro
Commissioner
Missouri Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education
James P. Phares
Superintendent
West Virginia Department of Education
Stefan Pryor
Commissioner
Connecticut State Department of Education
Richard Ross
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Ohio Department of Education
Rob Saxton
Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction
Oregon Department of Education
Melody Schopp
Secretary of Education
South Dakota Department of Education
Hanna Skandera
Secretary Designate
New Mexico Public Education Department
Pam Stewart
Commissioner of Education
Florida Department of Education
John White
State Superintendent
Louisiana Department of Education
Carey Wright
State Superintendent of Education
Mississippi Department of Education
