Washington State loses NCLB waiver.

[doctordonna]

The internet tells me WA is the first state to lose the waiver.

*******

The U.S. Department of Education is yanking Washington state’s waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the department announced Thursday.



Washington is now the first U.S. state to have its waiver revoked by the federal government.



Loss of the waiver means that Washington will no longer be exempt from onerous parts of the federal education law, which set performance goals that schools in Washington have been unable to meet.



That means school districts throughout Washington will have to redirect roughly $38 million in federal funding toward private tutoring efforts, instead of using the Title I funds to pay for district programs for low-income students. Additionally, nearly every school in the state will be labeled as failing, since Washington schools have fallen short of the performance standards established under the federal law.



Federal education officials told Washington education leaders in August that the Legislature must approve changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system to keep its waiver.



But lawmakers adjourned in March without requiring that student scores on state standardized tests be used as a factor in teacher evaluations. Current state law requires teacher and principal evaluations to consider student test scores, but lets districts choose which tests they will use – a status quo that the federal government has said is unacceptable.



U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a letter Thursday that the Legislature's lack of action on teacher evaluations is why he is revoking the state's waiver from the federal law, which is also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).



"As you know, Washington’s request for ESEA flexibility was approved based on Washington’s commitments to carry out certain actions in support of key education reforms," Duncan said in the letter addressed to Washington schools chief Randy Dorn.



"In return for those commitments, we granted your State and your local school districts significant flexibility. However, Washington has not been able to keep all of its commitments. Thus, although Washington has benefitted from ESEA flexibility, I regret that Washington’s flexibility will end with the 2013–2014 school year," Duncan wrote.



Without the waiver, schools and districts throughout Washington will also be required to notify parents that their school or district is failing.



An OSPI official told The News Tribune in March that there isn’t a single district in the state that won’t have to send parents some letters telling them their child attends a failing school or is in a failing district.



Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement Thursday that news of Washington's waiver is "disappointing, but not unexpected." He said said districts will be hurt by their inability to freely spend nearly $40 million in federal funds.



"Loss of that funding means those districts now face potential impacts that could include laying off some of Washington’s tremendous teachers or cutting back on programs that serve at-risk students," Inslee's statment said. "I hope districts will work to mitigate impacts on students. I know that despite this setback Washington teachers remain fully committed to serving our students.”



Dorn, the state superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement Thursday that he agrees with Duncan that "student progress should be one of multiple elements in a teacher's evaluation." He said lobbying by the state teachers union was to blame for Washington lawmakers' failure to act, and now the state's loss of the federal waiver.



"Unfortunately the teacher’s union felt it was more important to protect their members than agree to that change and pressured the Legislature not to act," Dorn said in his statement.



Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association, said the "Washington Legislature did the right thing this past session" by rejecting legislation aimed at keeping the state's waiver.



Wood said making any changes to teacher and principal evaluations would be detrimental to the new evaluation system that school districts are just starting to use this year.



"We have a great new evaluation system we’re implementing," Wood said. "What Secretary Duncan was trying to force on our state was going to derail that."



Read more here: www.thenewstribune.com/2014/04/24/3164023/washington-to-lose-nclb-waiver.html?sp=/99/296/#storylink=cpy

[Deleted]

Good for WA... tying teacher evaluations to kids test score seems rife with trouble

[mominatrix]

Damn. In my car, unable to give this the rant it so richly deserves.

I'll get there, though.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk

[NewOrleans]

lol, if they just fix the teacher evaluation system, I am sure evvvvvverything will be just fine! Yeah, that's it, the evaluaaaaaaation system.

[libbride]

OMG, this is such a mess. Schools here are so underfunded already, I can't imagine it worse.

[tef]

Apr 24, 2014 16:32:02 GMT -5 libbride said:

OMG, this is such a mess. Schools here are so underfunded already, I can't imagine it worse.

Didn't read fully, but this is a waiver. It just means they need to meet NCLB currently in place. That isnt tied to RTTT funds.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using proboards

[tef]

Wait, every school will be failing? The fuck? Is their state.that horrible in education?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using proboards

[epphd]

Part of me is with septimus and part of me is like ::blinkwhut?:: since my kid starts kindergarten in 2015. There's knee jerk part of me that feels like the waiver and additional funds are a basically payment to comply with a shitty evaluation system, so I'd rather there be flexibility in how districts do their evaluations. The whole letters to parents re failing schools seems like theater to me and a giant fucking waste of time and money, so way to go on that front.

It's totally shitty to disproportionately impact the programs for kids who need them most - again, way to pick the wrong targets for punishment.

I will be interested to see how the local districts and state act on this news. Education is a HUGE issue in WA, not least of which because our tax base is jacked up by chucklefucks like this clown and his ilk which makes it more and more difficult to raise money. That and our lack of state income taxes.

[epphd]

Apr 24, 2014 16:48:29 GMT -5 tef said:

Wait, every school will be failing? The fuck? Is their state.that horrible in education?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using proboards

Can't speak to the whole state, but at least in Seattle, most of the public schools are pretty decent to really good. I'm pretty baffled by this.

[mominatrix]

education is such a mess here.



Here's the big background...


First, you need to get that the Wa legislature are essentially a very part time body. They're only in session a very short time, and what they get done, they get done. Everything else just sits.



then, January 2012:

Supreme Court: Wash. hasn't met duty for education



The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state isn't meeting its constitutional obligation to amply pay for basic public education, but the justices gave an endorsement to the reform work the Legislature has already started.



By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP

Associated Press






SEATTLE —

The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state isn't meeting its constitutional obligation to amply pay for basic public education, but the justices gave an endorsement to the reform work the Legislature has already started.



The 85-page opinion said, however, that the judiciary would keep an eye on lawmakers to make sure they fully implement education reforms by 2018.



"The court cannot idly stand by as the legislature makes unfulfilled promises for reform," Justice Debra Stephens wrote in the majority opinion. She notes that deadlines for reforms keep getting moved back and if left up to the Legislature, the court expects the delays would continue.



Lawmakers, who convene next week for a 60-day session, will also need to focus on what to do about a nearly billion dollar budget shortfall.



The Supreme Court made a point of saying any future cuts to education must be done for educational reasons, not because there is a fiscal crisis.



The court made it clear the Legislature has to pay for education first, before any other state program or financial obligation, said attorney Thomas Ahearne, who represented the coalition of school districts, parents, teachers and community groups who sued the state



Stephanie McCleary, the mother of two school-age children whose name was on the lawsuit, was ecstatic about the ruling.



She was 13 years old when the Supreme Court last decided in 1978 that the state was not fulfilling its duty to the children of Washington. McCleary said she was especially pleased that the court plans to keep watch over the Legislature so the situation wouldn't drag on for another 34 years.



"It's a great day for the students in Washington state," McCleary said. "I just couldn't be happier. It's been a long process."



The coalition won a lawsuit in King County Superior Court in February 2010. Judge John Erlick ruled the state was violating its constitution by not fully paying for basic education.



The state appealed, saying Erlick reached beyond the high court's previous ruling on this issue in 1978. Attorney General Rob McKenna said Thursday the state also sought guidance for the Legislature about how to meet its constitutional duty. He called the decision helpful.



In the strongly worded conclusion of the ruling issued Thursday, the court outlines the ways the Legislature has failed to meet its obligations - by talking about reform but cutting school funding at the same time.



The court does not lay out a plan for maintaining that oversight, and Stephens acknowledges that work won't be easy.



"While we recognize that the issue is complex and no option may prove wholly satisfactory, this is not a reason for the judiciary to throw up its hands and offer no remedy at all," she wrote.



Seven justices signed the majority opinion, and two signed a partial dissent.



In the dissent, Chief Justice Barbara Madsen disagreed with the majority on the issue of who should make sure the court's decision is carried out.



"We have done our job; now we must defer to the legislature for implementation," she wrote, noting the Supreme Court set a precedence of having the Legislature do this work when it ruled in a 1978 decision on a similar case.



"The means of compliance are firmly within the realm of legislative power," Madsen wrote. She said the majority claims that the judiciary will "facilitate progress" by maintaining authority over the case but then fails to say how it will do that.



Ahearne, the attorney who represented the coalition of school districts and community groups, said he appreciated the fact that the court asked the attorneys on both sides to make suggestions about the most efficient way for the court to stay involved.



House Speaker Frank Chopp said the priority this legislative session will be to maintain current funding for basic education and then take a look at what should be the next steps in education reform.



Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said there are valuable education programs outside of the basics that may still be in danger of losing state dollars, including levy equalization, which gives financial help to property-tax poor school districts.



"Simply protecting basic education does not mean there won't be some significant cuts," she said Thursday morning at The Associated Press legislative forum in Olympia.



Brown said the Supreme Court could help out the Legislature by taking a closer look at the constitutionality of a citizen initiative that forces lawmakers to get a two-thirds vote on any tax or fee change.



Gov. Chris Gregoire said one of the next steps should be finding a more stable source of money for education in Washington state.



"This ruling reinforces my call for a half-penny sales tax increase to invest in education," she said in a statement, although the ruling does not mention the tax increase.



"If we don't, we take a step backward and not only threaten a violation of the court's ruling, but make it more difficult for students to gain the skills and knowledge needed to compete in today's global economy," the governor said.



Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn said the ruling reinforces what he's been saying for years, that education funding is not adequate and further cuts are out of the question.



Dorn thanked the court for issuing its ruling before the 2012 Legislature convened.



"The court understood that the issue of education funding is too important to Washington state to have waited until the end of another session," he said.

seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2017170589_apwaschooldollars5thldwritethru.html

gak, no time to do more right now... will add later.

[theoverlander]

Apr 24, 2014 16:48:29 GMT -5 tef said:

Wait, every school will be failing? The fuck? Is their state.that horrible in education?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using proboards

Well according to NCLB EVERY student should have met standard by this year, so yeah, I guess we are all a bunch of failures.  Sorry about that.  I'm all for high standards and students making positive annual growth, but to expected every single student to meet grade level standards at the same time just strikes me as absurd. 

[tef]

Apr 24, 2014 16:50:56 GMT -5 epphd said:

It's totally shitty to disproportionately impact the programs for kids who need them most - again, way to pick the wrong targets for punishment.

tbf, this is how it was done (the regulations to follow) for over a decade.  And, thanks to Congress not reauthorizing ESEA, you have this ridiculousness.  Add in RTTT, and the Sec of Education can hold these states over a barrel.  It is angering.

[tef]

Apr 24, 2014 17:41:25 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

First, you need to get that the Wa legislature are essentially a very part time body. They're only in session a very short time, and what they get done, they get done. Everything else just sits.

You all are worse than us (we ended April 7), but not much and we get a  lot done. I think that is a bit of a crutch if they can't get what they are tasked to do, done.  There are no groups working to change/push legislation?

[tef]

Apr 24, 2014 18:09:41 GMT -5 theoverlander said:

Apr 24, 2014 16:48:29 GMT -5 tef said:

Wait, every school will be failing? The fuck? Is their state.that horrible in education?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using proboards

Well according to NCLB EVERY student should have met standard by this year, so yeah, I guess we are all a bunch of failures.  Sorry about that.  I'm all for high standards and students making positive annual growth, but to expected every single student to meet grade level standards at the same time just strikes me as absurd. 

I know the law and if this was an issue, then a) you pass the damn ruling to keep this from happening and b) you've known this was happening, this is not new so, oh, you pass the regulation so that this is not a problem or make a huge stink to the President for allowing this to happen (waiver or get the big f you on funding).

[epphd]

Apr 24, 2014 19:23:25 GMT -5 kooshball said:

WA State schools are HORRIBLY underfunded. I know child left behind has issues but maybe this is enough to kick WA state in the ass. I highly doubt it though. You can't raise taxes in WA state without voter approval.

AKA FUCK TIM EYMAN IN THE ASS

Yup. Surgical strike, that's all I'm saying.

(*I'm kidding NSA, seriously).

[joenali]

Teacher evaluations are still tied to test scores, it's just up to each district as to which tests to use. In the district I work in is MAP, MSP and HSPE. Oh! And I just got an email about how k-2 has a new math test for our kids to take this May. And in 2015 it will be used in our evals.