On June 29, the Department of Education announced that waiver applications from five more states have been approved. Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia bring the total of waiver-approved states to 24, with 13 states still waiting for a decision.
The big surprise for many observers was the approval of Virginia’s waiver. Part of the waiver process requires that a state adopt standards that prepare students for college or career, which some conservative critics have argued is simply the administrations way of forcing states to adopt the Common Core. Virginia is one of the handful of states who has not adopted the Common Core, which could put to rest this argument. Virginia has proved that the second option offered in the waiver application—that of adopting state standards that the state’s university system agrees will prepare students for non-remedial college coursework—is viable path for states to take.
Prior to approval, all five states were required to revamp their applications to better spell out how they would intervene in schools that are missing achievement targets because of particular subgroups of students—even if those schools are not in the bottom 5 or 10% of performance.
The states also had to make changes to their proposed teacher evaluation systems in their original waiver application. For example, Arkansas and Missouri had to revise their systems so that teachers with low-performing students will not be able to be rated at the highest levels.
Each state also had to revise their applications to better communicate how students in special education and English Language Learners would be transitioned to college- and career-ready standards.
States that don’t get waiver approval by the start of the coming school year have been allowed to freeze their AMOs for one year. However, to be eligible for the freeze, states must take steps: adopting college- and career-ready standards, making data about achievement gaps public, and sharing data about student growth with teachers. Iowa, which had its original waiver request denied, has already applied for the freeze.
To read more, please visit http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/06/five_more_states_get_nclb_waiv.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
