Photo by Phil Dowsing Creative

Photograph by Phil Dowsing Creative

UPDATE:  The State Board of Educational activity approved seeking an NCLB waiver under Department 9401 of the police force on May 10, 2012.

The California Department of Education is recommending that California apply for a waiver from the nigh onerous conditions of the No Child Left Behind constabulary — but not under the atmospheric condition gear up by the Obama administration under a waiver program information technology appear last fall.

Instead, California would apply to Secretary of Pedagogy Arne Duncan for a waiver nether a carve up section of the decade-old NCLB law — Section 9401  — which allows whoever is secretarial assistant to grant waivers on a case past case basis.

The California Country Board of Instruction, almost all whose members are appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, will take up the thing at its regular meeting in Sacramento adjacent week.

Under the recommendation fabricated past State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the country would operate under its own organization of measuring pupil growth and performance, not 1 dictated past Washington that continues to characterization always larger number of California schools as failures.

Included in the recommendation Torlakson has sent to the board is a draft letter that  the board would send to the Acting Banana Secretary of Didactics for Simple and Secondary Education Michael Yudin.  Earlier this yr Yudin travelled from Washington to try to persuade the board — evidently unsuccessfully — that the requirements set up by the assistants to receive a waiver were non equally onerous as they appeared to be to many in California.

According to those involved in the discussions,  Governor Chocolate-brown strongly supports the land-directed approach recommended to the State Board and closely followed the discussions surrounding it.  He also discussed the thing directly with  Sec. Duncan when he was in Washington earlier this year.

The typhoon letter of the alphabet states that information technology would be incommunicable for California or its schoolhouse districts "to implement the requirements of the Secretary'southward waiver parcel finer and within the required timeline, and we are not willing to make promises that we are unable to carry out."

The draft letter makes the case that rather than lagging behind the rest of the nation when it comes to "reform" and accountability, California would once once more assume a leadership role:

Just as California led the way in developing emissions standards that were ultimately adopted across the nation, nosotros at present desire to lead the nation in didactics accountability and student learning besides. As we approach reauthorization of the Simple and Secondary Didactics Act, we believe that our state system of accountability provides a potent model for national consideration.

The recommendations that the board will consider were shaped by two meetings held on March 2 and April 17 at the Sacramento offices of WestEd, a leading inquiry and policy organisation. Participants included representatives of most major education organizations, including the California Teachers Association and the Clan of California Schoolhouse Administrators, school district officials from San Diego to Ukiah, equally well equally state educational activity officials.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a total of 351 waivers under the provisions of Section 9401, but oft for relatively minor aspects of the law. But terminal year, it granted Colorado's request for a more comprehensive waiver of primal NCLB provisions under Section 9401 of the police which bears some similarity to the waiver existence requested by California.

As explained in the materials to exist considered by the State Board adjacent calendar week, California would ask for  a waiver to achieve three goals. I would exist to "stop the ineffective do of over-identifying schools and districts for program improvement" — one that effectively labels them as failing. Another would be to give districts greater flexibility in how they spend federal funds.  Finally,  California would  "transition to a single accountability system."

Every bit the draft certificate states, California would "subsequently more than than a decade of living under two conflicting accountability systems, render to a single organisation that works," along with ending the practice of labelling increasing numbers of schools as being "in need of program improvement."

At the meetings convened past WestEd, participants raised numerous concerns regarding the requirements set past Secretary Duncan for states to qualify for his waiver plan.  These included:

  • Concerns that relief from the NCLB law would non be provided until the 2013–fourteen school year;
  •  To receive a waiver, California would accept to put in place initiatives that might not be compatible   with whatever Congress does whenever it gets effectually to reauthorizing the Unproblematic and Secondary Education Act;
  •  Setting upwardly new evaluation systems for teachers and principals linked to student growth and test scores would exist "contentious and distract from more than positive initiatives";
  • The accelerated timeline for implementing Common Core Country Standards (CCSS) chosen for in the administration's waiver proposal "would non be  programmatically or fiscally viable."
  • Implementing of the administration's waiver package would be costly — peradventure running into the billions of dollars according to before country estimates.

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