U.S. Department of Education’s Implementation and Oversight of Approved Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Requests

We found that the Department established and implemented an extensive and effective process for assessing SEA’s compliance with approved ESEA flexibility requests based on the information the SEAs submitted during monitoring. However, we noted that the Department could improve its oversight of SEAs by taking steps to ensure the accuracy of the data that SEAs submit. Specifically, the Department relied on SEAs to ensure the accuracy of the information but did not verify that the SEAs had policies and procedures to ensure accuracy. In addition, the Department did not require SEAs to provide assurance statements regarding data accuracy and did not have procedures requiring SEAs to disclose any limitations of the data or their data validation processes. Although the Department lacked procedures for verifying data accuracy, all nine SEAs we reviewed followed their respective State policies and procedures for ensuring the accuracy of the data submitted to the Department. However, because we did not review all SEAs, there is a risk that the remaining SEAs may not be taking steps to ensure data accuracy.