Duncan says it’s still possible for state to get NCLB waiver - by John Fensterwald
by John Fensterwald
California remains interested in receiving a waiver from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Wednesday it remains possible for the state to get one. But, Duncan said in an interview after an event in Sunnyvale, “It’s getting late in the game” to apply for a state waiver to take effect this fall.
State officials have had continuing discussions with their federal counterparts about requirements for a waiver, and Duncan said that he and Gov. Jerry Brown had met to talk about it when Brown was in Washington two months ago. But Karen Stapf-Walters, an adviser to Brown and the executive director of the state Board of Education, saidWednesday that talks remained “at a conceptual level,” and the state Department of Education has not yet started to write an application. The issue of a waiver is not on the state Board’s bimonthly meeting next week.Duncan wasn’t more forthcoming about a deadline or the odds that the state would get a waiver, but he was clear about leaving the door open for California – one of only a half-dozen states without an application either approved or pending in Washington.
The timing is tricky, and the issue is politically sensitive, because Duncan now has before him an application from nine California districts for a separate district waiver. That application, through their nonprofit, the California Office to Reform Education or CORE, has already undergone a formal federal review, and will be re-submitted, in response to extensive reviewers’ questions, sometime in May, Rick Miller, executive director of CORE, said this week.
CORE submitted its application out of frustration after the state’s application was denied in