The U.S. Department of Education has granted Arizona’s Flexibility Request allowed under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Ten other states have sought and received the waiver.
Few states will meet the requirements laid out in NCLB, and a waiver is one way to avoid failure.
Arizona pursued the largest possible waiver under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Most standards applied in the determination of compliance with No Child Left Behind are created by individual states. Contrary to what most people firmly believe they know; No Child Left Behind merely requires that states meet the standards they themselves have set for themselves. Some of them have set miserably low standards, including Arizona.
An Arizona student passing the AIMS test prior to graduation may have only demonstrated a 7th grade proficiency in basic skills. In other words, a passing grade on the AIMS test for high school students ensures that they have the basic skills expected of 7th graders.
Over 800 Arizona schools, of which 68 were TUSD schools, failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” this past school year. According to the Arizona Republic, “Last year, 563 schools, or 29 percent, failed to make “adequate yearly progress.” Changes in the way tests were scored, as well as the increased percentage of students demonstrating proficiency that each school had to use in order to calculate Adequate Yearly Progress, made a significant difference in the percentage of schools meeting AYP requirements in writing.
States must adopt and have a plan to implement college and career-ready standards. They must also create comprehensive systems of teacher and principal development, evaluation and support that include factors beyond test scores, such as principal observation, peer review, student work, or parent and student feedback…they must set new performance targets for improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps. They also must have accountability systems that recognize and reward high-performing schools and those that are making significant gains. However, as it has been in the past, state’s can determine the metrics.