US Department of Education (USDE) Assistant Education Secretary Jim Blew has stated that states should not expect standardized testing waivers for the 2020-21 school year. According to Chalkbeat, waivers from state testing requirements that were available for school districts for 2019-20 due to school closures related to COVID-19 will not be approved by the USDE for 2020-21. On a related issue, the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), a nonprofit assessment provider, has now released state and federal policy recommendations to guide lawmakers and educators in providing accurate and helpful assessments when their students return to in-person instruction.  Recent recommendations by the NWEA, a nonprofit assessment provider, include suggestions to use two years of assessment data to measure student growth rather than a single year and to rethink how assessments should be administered and utilized. 

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