District Awaits Official Note on NCLB Waiver

The is still waiting for official notification on the ramifications of the state’s No Child Left Behind Act Waiver, according to district officials.

Once it receives notification about the waiver, it will be able to establish its reactions and plan for .

The application, which the state submitted in November, included a new accountability system that divides schools into one of three tiers. The tiers are identified by growth and absolute proficiency and include Priority Schools, Focus Schools and Reward Schools.

The application defined Priority Schools as the lowest-performing five percent of Title I schools in the state, as defined by proficiency, growth and graduation rates. Non-Title I schools that meet the same criteria would also be defined as a Priority School.

The second designation, Focus Schools, would include at 10 percent of the state’s Title one schools. Like the Priority Schools, the Focus Schools would be identified based on achievement gaps between subgroups, and low performance or graduation rates among subgroups. Non-Title I schools that meet those criteria would be defined at Priority Schools too.

High proficiency levels or high levels of growth, including progress toward closing achievement gaps, would identify the state’s Reward Schools. According to the state, the definition allows schools to achieve the designation regardless of the school’s starting point.

As part of the definitions, the state will create seven Regional Development Centers to handle interventions for Priority and Focus Schools. The interventions, which the state said would be tailored for each specific school, include expanding learning time, data-backed decision making and a focus on improving instruction.

In addition, the state would develop financial bonus for Reward Schools.

School report cards would be redeveloped too.

In Hillsborough, which has struggled with to receive Adequate Yearly Progress ,the district's overall upward trend could be rewarded under the new system—a change from the current NCLB designations.

In several Hillsborough schools, missed benchmarks among several subgroups meant a warning status for that school, under the current designations. But a standard based off improvement could allow the district more leeway with its scores by rewarding progress made over the year prior—instead of progress toward a benchmark.

The No Child Left Behind Act set-up requires students in each school district to reach a certain set of proficiency benchmarks each year in math, science and literacy. School district that don’t reach those benchmarks face—or fail to reach a Safe Harbor designation, which is a 10 percent improvement over the prior year’s score—can face state intervention, restructuring of schools that consistently miss marks, district restructuring and economic sanctions. The act also divides students into several key subgroups by race or ethnicity, economic status, and whether a student has Special Needs. Children can count in a subgroup more than once as well.

According to the governor’s office, the NCLB application waiver is part of the governor’s larger education reform agenda. Other portions of that agenda include tying objective measurements to tenure, allowing districts to remove its least effective teachers instead of junior staff members during layoffs, giving high salaries to teachers in failing districts, increase the number of charter school authorizers, allowing failing public schools to be converted to charter schools and providing tax credits to entities that contribute to scholarships for low-income students.