States to get waivers from federal testing mandates

No Child Left Behind will get some exemptions.

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By Margo Rutledge Kissell, Staff Writer Updated 6:44 AM Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The Obama administration said Monday it will grant waivers to free states from the stringent testing mandates in the No Child Left Behind school accountability law as long as they pursue other reform efforts.

Ohio’s new Superintendent of Public Instruction Stan Heffner said state education officials are “actively studying what waiver options may be available” and will make a final determination after they review more details expected to come from the U.S. Department of Education next month.

“As Ohio moves forward from a system based on minimum competency to one focused on college and career readiness, our schools need a new set of accountability tools to measure their progress,” Heffner said in a statement.

The goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to have 100 percent of students proficient in math and reading by 2014 or schools will face serious sanctions, including the loss of federal aid. Critics call the law’s benchmarks unrealistic.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said schools are “begging for relief.” He said President Barack Obama has authorized him to waive the proficiency requirements for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs because Congress has failed to act on a long-overdue rewrite of the widely criticized law.

“We can’t have a law of the land that has so many perverse incentives,” Duncan said. “We can’t afford to wait.”

States have been required to bring more students up to the math and reading standards each year, based on tests that usually take place each spring. The step-by-step ramping up of the 9-year-old law has caused stress in states and most school districts, because more and more schools are labeled as failures as too few of their students meet testing goals.

Ohio Department of Education spokesman Patrick Gallaway said it’s a big concern in Ohio.

“Many school districts have shared with us recently that this is actually a distraction to growth and moving students forward. The goal must be realistic and focus on other issues rather than assessment alone,” Gallaway said. “To base this 100 percent accountability on proficiency is not realistic.”

In Ohio, the greatest percentage of students reading at or above the proficient standard in May were 86 percent of sixth- and eighth-graders, according to data from the Ohio Achievement Assessments given in grades 3 through 8. The highest percentage of students proficient or above in math: 82 percent of third-graders.

Through the waivers, schools will get some relief from looming deadlines to meet testing goals as long as they agree to embrace other kinds of education reforms such as raising standards, helping teachers and principals improve, and focusing on fixing the lowest performing schools.

Duncan and Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said the administration will encourage every state to apply and will work with them to meet the requirements.

Duncan said that the plan for temporary relief from some aspects of the federal law would not undermine what Congress is still discussing in terms of revising federal education laws. The long-awaited overhaul of the law began earlier this year in the House, but a comprehensive reform appears far from the finish line.

This story contains information from The Associated Press.

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