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6/12 Virginia schools waived from No Child Left Behind benchmarks | LoudounTimes.com

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Friday, Jun. 29, 2012 by Laura Peters, Times-Mirror Staff Writer | 0 comments | Email this story

Virginia schools and school divisions will no longer have to meet the No Child Left Behindbenchmarks, according to Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia Wright.

The benchmarks that have been waived include reading, mathematics and the federal law thatmandates all students to achieve grade-level proficiency by 2014.

The Virginia State Board of Educations application for a waiver for certain provisions under NoChild Left Behind was approved by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan June 29.

Virginia schools and school divisions can now focus their energy and resources onimplementing the state Board of Educations rigorous new content standards and assessments

without contending with outdated and often counter-productive federal requirements andrules, Wright said in a release. The commonwealth will continue to hold schools accountablefor closing achievement gaps but schools wont be subject to a system of increasingly unrealisticannual objectives.

The waiver allows the state Board of Education to establish goals for increasing studentachievement and the achievement of students in demographic subgroups. The waiver also setsup annual benchmarks with the goal of reducing the failure rate in reading and mathematics by50 percent within six years. According to No Child Left Behind, passed in 2001, it requires allstudents, regardless of circumstance, disability or achievement level, to demonstrate grade-levelproficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014.

Virginia schools will no longer receive annual Adequate Yearly Progress ratings, the releasesaid. With the newly-approved waiver, information of schools meeting or not meeting the new

benchmarks will now be reported separately in August. The Virginia Depa rtment of Educationwill report on low-performing schools and identify them as priority and focus schools, therelease said. They will also recognize high performing schools as reward schools.

This new federal accountability model is more complicated than the Board of Educationbelieves is necessary, but it is definitely a step in the right direction, Virginia Board of Ed ucationPresident David M. Foster said in a release. Looking ahead, it is my hope that Congress will atlast revise NCLB and allow Virginia to attack achievement gaps within the context of the SOLprogram, free from unwarranted and intrusive federal rules.

According to the Virginia Board of Ed ucation, p riority schools will be identified based on overallstudent achievement, which includes graduation rates in high schools.

Both priority and focus schools will be subject to state-approved and monitored school-improvement interventions, the board says. Priority schools will have to have a state-approvedturnaround partner to help the school meet state and federal requirements. While focusschools will have to employ a state-approved coach to help develop, implement and monitorstrategies to improve student performance, the board stated in a release.

The waiver also requires each school division to implement the performance and evaluationstandards for teachers and principals that were approved by the Board of Education last year.

According to the standard, 40 percent of a teacher of principal evaluation is to be based onstudent academic progress. The board also said schools that are unprepared to implement thenew performance standards for the 2012-2013 school year much have a corrective plan statinghow they will be implemented in the 2013-2014 school year.

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Virginia schools waived from No Child Left Behind benchmarks