AUGUSTA — The U.S. Department of Education this week announced that 10 states had received approval to bypass oft-maligned provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Maine Department of Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen
The state of Maine may soon attempt to join them. A spokesman for the state DOE said Friday that Commissioner Stephen Bowen will announce Monday whether Maine will apply Feb. 21 for the next round of waivers from the law.
Bowen has been an outspoken critic of the 10-year-old law, in particular, provisions that assign school effectiveness ratings to student math and reading proficiency based on their performance on standardized testing. Bowen has said student achievement should be measured by individual growth, rather than by how many students test at their grade level.
"Let us begin looking at where was the student when he or she came through the door," Bowen told the Sun Journal last year. "Let's track that growth, and let's assess the success of teachers and administrations based on how much growth” students had.
Other education commissioners agree, as do many state superintendents.
President Barack Obama announced Thursday that Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee were exempt. If Maine attempts to join them, it will have to establish its own accountability system that measures student progress, teacher and administrative evaluation standards tied to student achievement, and methods of tracking school performance.
DOE spokesman David Connerty-Marin said that unlike the states that received waivers this week, Maine has never had an established accountability system.
"We would have to essentially build one from scratch," he said.
Earlier this week, Bowen and Gov. Paul LePage unveiled a four-pronged education reform plan that includes teacher evaluation.
Maine would have to take additional steps to achieve a NCLB waiver.
In March 2010, the Obama administration submitted a "blueprint for reform" to Congress. The blueprint includes states adopting college and career-ready standards, evaluation methods that go beyond standardized testing and include peer review, student work or parent and student feedback.
In a press release, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the current law drives down standards, weakens accountability, causes narrowing of the curriculum and labels too many schools as failing.
“Rather than dictating educational decisions from Washington, we want state and local educators to decide how to best meet the individual needs of students,” Duncan said in prepared remarks.
Ten of the 11 states that applied during the last cycle received waivers. The application by New Mexico was denied. Several states received conditional waivers that will require additional collaboration with the federal government.
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NCLB needs to be out of the education system
I feel it is a step in the right direction to get off this wagon, children are mostly taught how to take tests, this is what the teachers are forced to teach, because of the NCLB. Kids graduating from high school cannot count change back or balance a check book...they are not being taught any of the common stuff that they use every day, the sad thing is that parents are not picking up on what is missing and not teaching the kids these things at home. Knowing how to make the correct change also means knowing if you get the right change. Kids are being left short changed here (pun intended).
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.At least we now know where
At least we now know where lepage plans on getting money for his next tax cuts for the wealthy. First he stole from the elderly and disabled, now he's going after the children. Eat your caviar folks, we all know you have no shame.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Dan, as much as you and I
Dan, as much as you and I both dislike LePage, he is not responsible for NCLB....that became law at the federal level under President Bush....another one that didn't know which end was up
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If the teachers would give the kids homework, not just little stuff and the parents would get the kids of the video games there wouldn't be any kids left behind. My daughter is a third grader working at 6th grade levels. But the system isn't challenging her enough and she gets bored easy. Everything she is doing now she was doing in kindergarten because I was teaching her. It seems that teachers don't correct spelling errors, instead we just tell the kids good job? What happens when they get older and you tell them they have been spelling constitution wrong? constitushun. They will be even more confused and might even get upset and say well it wasn't wrong then because no one told me it was spelled wrong.
We need to spend more time with our kids then what we do now. Now we let them watch tv, play video games while we do our things. This is wrong.
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