No Child Left Behind waiver pulled for WA State
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=37228c12c269485edba4350f8430931d9b75c90eaf9ffac437f30bcd5703c7dc
The Education Department is pulling Washington state's No Child Left Behind waiver because the state has not met the department's timeline for tying teacher evaluations to student performance metrics.
Washington is the first state to lose its waiver. The loss will give local districts less flexibility in using federal funds. For instance, they may now be required to spend millions on private tutoring services for at-risk students. The waiver revocation could also result in nearly every school across the state
being labeled as failing under NCLB.
Washington had pledged in its waiver application to make student growth a significant factor in teacher and principal evaluations by the 2014-15 school year. But the state Legislature refused to pass a bill mandating that student performance on statewide assessments be included in teacher evaluations. The
department placed the state on "high-risk" status in August. Arizona, Kansas and Oregon are also at risk of losing their waivers.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/washington-state-nclb-waiver-arne-duncan-105997.html?hp=l8
Washington State has become the first State in the nation to have the NCLB waiver pulled. Therefore under the ridiculous rules of No Child Left Untested, where every student at every school must pass every test, (something no school in the world has ever done), every school in Washington State will be declared a failure!
The reason the waiver is being pulled is that the Washington State legislature refused to pass a new law which would require that unreliable student test results be used to fire teachers. Pulling the waiver will mean lost of control of about $50 million in federal funding and directly harm the education of thousands of mainly preschool and special education students in Washington State. Arnie Duncan should be fired for this outrageous and despicable crime and so should every one in Congress who allowed this to happen!
Here is a link to a website we have set up to fight back:
http://coalitiontoprotectourpublicschools.org/latest-news/3-arnie-duncan-pulls-nclb-waiver-and-declares-every-public-school-in-washington-state-to-be-a-failure