The Annotated No Child Left Behind Waiver Conversation

Andrew Rotherham:

I’m not opposed to a new round of waivers on No Child Left Behind, but the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, the details seem to be getting short shrift lately in favor of the same talking points. To wit, let’s take a look at today’s NYT story on the forthcoming Duncan waiver proposal. Here it is (mostly) annotated with text from the article in itals.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

Well, it’s not really 100 percent, more like 92 percent or so, and it’s not 2014 in practice but really several years later. And in practice for a school to make “adequate yearly progress” often only 6 or 7 in 10 of its students need to be passing a test at the proficient level right now. And, to be proficient doesn’t mean a perfect score on a test, often more like getting half the questions on a test right. That all makes it sound too reasonable though. Besides, those are details! Nothing but details!

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 11, 2011 2:29 AM
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