Schools Chiefs See a Path to Proposing Their Own Accountability Systems (countering NCLB)

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Source: The New York Times

Some state education chiefs say that if Congress does not overhaul No Child Left Behind, the main federal law governing public education, by the fall, they may be allowed to propose their own accountability systems as an alternative.

These education chiefs said this week that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his aides have signaled that they may grant a waiver on a crucial provision in the law, a requirement that all children be proficient in English and math by 2014, a goal widely seen as unrealistic.

Other provisions that the administration might be willing to relax include a requirement that districts identify and address schools that do not make “adequate yearly progress” toward specific goals and restrictions on how some federal education money must be spent.

In exchange for being freed from these requirements, states would have to propose their own accountability rules and ways they would intervene in underperforming schools, these state education chiefs said they had been told.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/education/13educ.html