Stand for Children is actively involved in Oregon’s efforts to get a waiver from No Child Left Behind. The federal law has helped shine a light on the achievement scores for low-income children, special education students, English Language Learners, and children of color.
At the same time, No Child Left Behind has relied on solutions that are too prescriptive and on punishment rather than support. Some schools are now punished regardless of the gains students are making.
Governor Kitzhaber’s staff and the Oregon Department of Education are taking the lead on efforts to write Oregon’s waiver application. More than 100 stakeholders are involved in developing recommendations for Oregon on the four key waiver requirements:
(1) Adopting Common Core Standards and plan to adopt an aligned assessment,
(2) Developing a system for identifying and supporting schools that are really struggling and schools that are demonstrating impressive success,
(3) Ensuring meaningful evaluations for principals and teachers, and
(4) Reducing reporting requirements and paperwork.
Last month, Oregon released the first draft of its waiver application.
Below is a short summary of our analysis.
Oregon’s NCLB waiver application represents the strongest plan to improve public schools in Oregon that we’ve seen in 10 years. We can finally see a path to capitalize on the excellent work being done by educators in thriving schools across the state. And we support the plan to finally take steps to improve the schools that are struggling most so their students get the excellent education they deserve.
We would like to see the application strengthened in three major areas:
Improve plans for implementation of Common Core State Standards and Educator Evaluations. We want to ensure that higher standards for learning and better feedback for teachers and principals to actually benefit children.
- Kentucky & Georgia’s waiver applications offer strong models for Oregon about how to implement the Common Core Standards, and specific examples are available in the memo.
- We advocate for more leadership from the Department of Education to provide coordinated training and resources to all of Oregon’s school districts so they can implement meaningful evaluations for principals and teachers.
- Identify clearly how we’re defining the lowest performing schools in the state. This will avoid the over identification of alternative high schools that occurred last year, and give credit to schools that are making significant progress for historically underserved students.
- We support Oregon’s shift toward consideration of student learning growth (in addition to proficiency), and advocate for that shift to be even more clear and decisive.
- Create a clear plan to lift up the most struggling schools. Turning around a struggling school or district is an incredibly complicated and important task, and our educators are going to need excellent support to get better outcomes for kids.
- We advocate for a clear, responsible, and quick timeline for improvement of the most struggling schools.
- The Oregon Department of Education will need to provide meaningful support to schools identified as needing intervention. We advocate they identify the support needed and find the resources and capacity to provide that support.
Learn more about NCLB waivers.
Timeline
- December 15th – Oregon’s draft waiver application becomes public
- December 15th through January 15th – Public comment period
- Late January – ODE and Governor’s office revise and submit waiver application
- February through Early Summer – Stakeholder work to implement the plans in Oregon’s waiver application continues
Questions about this process? E-mail dhepper@stand.org to learn more or find out how you can get involved!