U.S. Offers To Waive Federal Education Law

Education Secretary Arne Duncan will waive key aspects of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law (also known as the ESEA) for states that meet specified criteria. Waivers will apply to several NCLB provisions, including the 2014 deadline for 100% of students to achieve academic proficiency in reading and math, and a requirement that schools and school districts make adequate yearly progress toward that goal or suffer sanctions. In return, states must meet several conditions, including:

• adopting college and career-ready academic standards;
• implementing aggressive turnaround interventions for the lowest-performing 5% of their schools (“priority schools”);
• publicly identifying the next-lowest performing 10% of schools (“focus schools”) and implementing programs, such as additional tutoring and public school choice, at those schools; and
• establishing teacher and principal evaluation programs that (a) have at least three levels of performance, (b) include student achievement as a significant factor, (c) provide clear and timely feedback, and (d) are used in making personnel decisions.

States receiving waivers will still have to disaggregate test data by student subgroup and set “ambitious but achievable” performance targets for every school and each identifiable student subgroup.


States may apply for waivers by November 14 for December review or by mid-February 2012 for spring review. As of October 13, 2011, 41 states, including Connecticut, had notified the US DOE that they will seek the waivers.