Oregon declared at 'high risk' of breaking agreement with U.S. Department of Education to rate teachers partly by test scores
The U.S. Department of Education today declared Oregon at "high risk" of failing to rate teachers in part based on their students' test score gains.
That would break a key promise made last year to secure more freedom for Oregon schools.
If Oregon can't pass federal muster by May 1, the state will have to resume following the No Child Left Behind law. That would put virtually every school that receives federal funding on the federal needs-improvement list and require all of them to offer students a priority transfer and free transportation to a school not on the improvement list.
Oregon education leaders, including the governor and state schools chief, had promised the Obama administration in 2012 that by spring 2013, Oregon would come up with a plan to evaluate teachers and principals using their students' gains on state reading and math test as a significant factor in the educator's overall rating.
But Oregon couldn't get that done in one school year and needs another to keep testing the approach and land on a solid plan, said Assistant Superintendent Jim Carlile.
Because Oregon didn't meet the deadline, it will be required to submit monthly progress reports to the U.S. Department of Education and will be subject to greater scrutiny than states that have have complied with agreements they reached in order to be freed from portions of the No Child Left Behind law. Washington and Kansas also were declared "high risk" states today and will be subject to the same level of oversight as Oregon.
The decision to subject the three states to high risk monitoring was signed by Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle. The rationale and consequences were explained in detail by a deputy at the U.S. Department of Education who demanded