Parents: make your voice heard on your state’s NCLB waiver! « Parents Across America:
by leoniehaimson
Dear all:
As you know, the U.S. Department of Education is offering a “waiver” of NCLB requirements (ESEA flexibility) to those states that agree to specific requirements.
Unfortunately, these new requirements may be as onerous and expensive, if not more so, than NCLB itself. States must adopt new curricula, new tests, new sanctions/supports for the 15 percent lowest scoring schools, must link teacher and principal evaluations to standardized test scores, and instead of all students being “proficient” by 2014, all students must be “college ready” by 2020.
California has estimated that it will cost the state over $2 billion to implement the mandates attached to this “flexibility.”
Montana found that the requirements would cost the state millions of extra dollars and the “reforms” required were not in students’ best educational interests. Montana declined this