From William J. Mathis, managing director of the National Education Policy Center and a former Vermont school superintendent. His is presently a member of the state Board of Education. The views expressed are his own.
The federal Department of Education’s waiver provisions for the No Child Left Behind law were announced by the president with the catch-phrase “flexibility” prominently displayed.
This appearance of federal magnanimity was driven by the recent discovery by the federal government that, eventually, every school will fail. Of course, this has been a well-known fact for years. Thus, “waiving” the requirement that all students be proficient by 2014 is a bit like waiving the prohibition on getting wet after the tsunami has hit the beach.
The “flexibility” word is used as the lead in 10 straight paragraphs of the waiver provisions. Unfortunately, this is an exercise in Orwellian Newspeak. For those thinking the waivers offer new freedom and flexibility, they need only review the federal 20-page list of questions and conditions set forth in the review guidance. States and locals are free to be flexible as long as they adopt a national curriculum for all students, apply one of two sets of common national assessments in grades 3-8 plus high schools, adopt a set of supports/sanctions for the lowest scoring 15 percent of schools in each state, embrace at least three student performance levels, and apply growth models to evaluate teachers and principals by standardized test scores.
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