Banda asks Duncan to allow SPS Waiver
From Superintendent Banda:
Dear Seattle Public Schools community,
Over the last several years we have made great strides in ensuring our students graduate ready for success in college, career and life. However, much work remains to ensure that each and every student has the academic and community supports they need to be successful learners in school and beyond.
In order to best serve our students and families, Seattle Public Schools is asking the U.S. Department of Education for a Local Educational Agency (LEA) waiver from several provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Specifically, we are requesting the flexibility to use 20 percent of our Title 1, Part A funds to provide our students with reading and math interventions and to help fund before and after school programs in our Title 1 schools. In the absence of a waiver, Seattle must set aside $2.1 million for the Public School Choice and Supplemental Educational Services provisions in NCLB, which would prevent us from investing these funds in what we know works best for our students.
Under NCLB, parents with students attending schools that do not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) must be notified of their school’s status, and be offered the choice to attend another school that meets AYP. However NCLB requires that unless 100 percent of students are proficient in reading and mathematics based on the state assessment by 2014, the school will be labeled “failing.” We anticipate that no schools (within the district or state) will meet this requirement. We believe that sending every family a letter notifying them that their school is “failing” is counterproductive to the progress we have been making.
While the state of Washington was denied the waiver in March, Seattle Public Schools satisfies every federal requirement to receive a waiver. In our request to the Department of Education today, we provide a clear rationale and include student achievement data illustrating the progress our students have made while the waiver was in place. Our argument is based on some of the points below:
- Seattle Public Schools has adopted the Washington State accountability system to identify underperforming “Priority” and “Focus” schools to receive supplementary support services for school improvement each year.
- Seattle Public Schools has collaborated with the Seattle Schools Community Forum: Banda asks Duncan to allow SPS Waiver: