Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should develop an online clearinghouse of sample documents from states and localities who wish to share them, past webinar recordings and their related documents, and links to other relevant resources that all SEAs can access. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education agreed with this recommendation. The agency said that its Office of Elementary and Secondary Education will restructure its entire website to better organize its information, and create a new web page to house all foster care-related information and resources. Additionally, Education said this office will launch a virtual portal through which SEA foster care points of contact may collaborate and share resources. We will consider closing this recommendation when these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should direct the Office of Academic Improvement to expand its performance measures for the 21st Century program to address all program objectives. Specifically, Education should establish performance measures related to key behavioral, including student attendance and disciplinary incidents, and socio-emotional outcomes.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education neither agreed nor disagreed with our recommendations; rather, it generally noted that it will keep our recommendations in mind as it continues to implement changes in the program as a result of ESSA. We will monitor the agency's progress and consider closing it when the agency provides documentation that these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should direct the Office of Academic Improvement to conduct federal-level data checks on the accuracy of 21st Century program data submitted by states. Such checks could test for logical relationships between fields. Education should also publicly disclose and address any data limitations it identifies, as appropriate.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation, but stated that it was taking some actions to enhance program data. We will monitor the agency's progress and consider closing it when the agency provides documentation that these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should direct the Office of Academic Improvement to provide written, non-regulatory guidance to states on developing and conducting high-quality 21st Century state evaluations to help address the difficulties states face in measuring program performance and effectiveness.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation, but identified steps it plans to take to implement it. We will monitor the agency's progress and consider closing it when the agency provides documentation that these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should direct the Office of Academic Improvement to use the information it collects from its monitoring visits and ongoing interactions with states to share effective practices across states for sustaining their 21st Century programs once program funding ends. This information could be shared using existing mechanisms such as Education's meetings with 21st Century state coordinators.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation, but identified steps it plans to take to implement it. We will monitor the agency's progress and consider closing it when the agency provides documentation that these efforts are complete.

Recommendation: To strengthen Education's oversight of accreditors through the recognition review process, the Secretary of Education should draw upon accreditor data to determine whether accreditors are consistently applying and enforcing their standards to ensure that the education offered by schools is of sufficient quality. For example, Education could systematically use available information related to the frequency of accreditor sanctions or could do additional analyses, such as comparing accreditor sanction data with Education's information on student outcomes, to inform its recognition reviews.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: Education agreed with this recommendation, noting that it is committed to identifying ways to use data about and from accreditors in its oversight. As of December 2017, Education has taken steps to track the number of accreditor sanctions issued by each accrediting agency. Education previously noted that this information will then be used to focus their limited resources on those accrediting agencies with extremely low or high sanction rates, to strengthen its oversight of accreditors. In April 2018, Education reported that it tracks accreditor sanctions and is aware of the number of sanctions when conducting agency reviews. They found no correlation between the number of sanctions an accrediting agency levies against its accredited institutions and compliance or noncompliance with the Criteria for Recognition, so they noted that this is not a useful tool. However, we continue to believe that implementing the recommendation could help inform Education's reviews of accreditors and ultimately reduce potential risk to students and federal funds. For example, analyses of accreditor sanction data could help reveal patterns in individual accreditor behavior and overall trends in sanctions. In addition, as we noted in the report, Education could compare accreditor sanction data with outcome data for accreditors' member institutions. These analyses could help Education determine how to better use data in decision-making, which is a goal listed in their 2014 strategic plan (cited in the report), as well as help to identify potential risks the accreditors might face. To close this recommendation, Education should show that it uses sanction data to inform its discussions of accreditor recognition and oversight.