Thursday, March 15, 2012

Kentucky to Apply for more NCLB Waivers

The U.S. Department of Education is now offering selected states the opportunity to request two additional waivers from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind Act (ESEA/NCLB).
This opportunity is now being provided to states that already have received waivers from ESEA/NCLB. In February, Kentucky was granted a waiver that provided flexibility in many areas related to public school assessment and accountability.
These additional waivers were not included in the original waiver package, but were recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (USED) as necessary to complete the flexibility package. Two additional waivers are offered, and Kentucky will apply for both.

*         Waiver of the requirements that state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs, or school districts) make AYP determinations -- Performance toward annual measureable objectives (AMOs, or goals) for all student subgroups must still be reported, and that performance must support continuous improvement in Title I schools that are not Reward Schools, Priority Schools or Focus Schools. This waiver will reinforce Kentucky’s use of the Unbridled Learning: College/Career Readiness for All accountability system to measure progress, rather than the NCLB model.

  • Waiver of ESEA sections 1113(a)(3)-(4) and 1113(c)(1), which require an LEA to select its Title I schools, and allocate Title I, Part A funds to those schools, in rank-order of poverty – This waiver would permit an LEA to serve a Title I-eligible high school with a graduation rate below 60 percent and identified as a Priority School even if that school has a lower poverty rate than other Title I-participating schools in the LEA. This offers more flexibility to school districts in use of Title I, Part A funds as they serve schools designated as Priority Schools to address issues causing low academic performance.
The draft letter from Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday to the U.S. Department of Education that will serve as the official request for the waivers is posted here

SOURCE: KDE Press release

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

More federal mother-may-I about educating our state's kids; too bad there is nol kick back with this one.

I am so sick of this sort of stuff getting publicity as though KDE and the Commissioner are doing something for kids. You want to help kids, get your tails back into the classroom and stop wasting our time with this media grandstanding to pretend like you are making a difference.

If thought this stuff mattered I would not be so insensative and blunt, but we have been playing this reform shell game for a couple of decades now and teachers are just tired of it and tired of being bullied and demonized.

KDE Old Testement: And reform begot change which begot realignment which begot recalibration which begot change which begot reassessment which begot revision which begot review which begot reform which begot....

Enough already, stop looking for the damn educational holy grail and start spending money and time directly on students and not on fabricated initiatives established to make the public think you are doing something of value.

If you want to see what is important about education, the entire staff needs to take a field trip to West Liberty and realize that all this mindless alphabet soup of assessment and curriculum changes don't mean a hill of beans for teachers other than more work that doesn't contribute to any significance for our children. Just money for vendors and slogans for politicians.