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Friday, September 7, 2012

Follow up on Ed Waivers, Junk Rating Systems & and Misplaced Blame – New York City’s “Failing” Schools « School Finance 101

Follow up on Ed Waivers, Junk Rating Systems & and Misplaced Blame – New York City’s “Failing” Schools « School Finance 101:


Follow up on Ed Waivers, Junk Rating Systems & and Misplaced Blame – New York City’s “Failing” Schools

About a week ago, I put up a post explaining a multitude of concerns I have with the current NCLB waiver process itself and how it is playing out at the state level. To summarize, what we have here is the executive branch of the federal government coercing state officials to simply ignore existing federal statutes, by granting waivers to state officials who adopt the current administration’s preferred education reform strategies. Setting aside the legal/governance concerns, which are huge, few if any of these preferred strategies are informed by any sound research/analysis.
Equally if not more disturbing is how this waiver process is playing out at ground level, and the message it sends.  Once again (as in Race to the Top) the administration has encouraged the adoption of ill-conceived homogenized policy frameworks across states. States are encouraged, through the waiver application process, to propose how they will abuse data yielded by their generally inadequate data systems in order to