LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Department of Education asked the federal government by Tuesday’s deadline to be excused from a key provision in the federal No Child Left Behind Act that requires 100 percent of public school students to achieve at grade level on state math and literacy exams by 2013-14.
Arkansas was one of several states expected to apply this month to the U.S. Department of Education for waivers to the federal law while also committing to take steps to adopt standards that will prepare students for college and careers, support and hold schools accountable for student achievement, and improve instruction and school leadership.
The Arkansas proposal on accountability is titled Differentiated Accountability, Recognition and Tiered Support System.
The proposal is built around the option offered by the federal government to cut in half, within six years, the gap between the percentage of students at a school now scoring at grade level and 100 percent proficient.
For example, if 76 percent of students at a school scored at a proficient or grade level on the 2011 state Benchmark or End of Course tests, then the school’s proficiency “gap” would be 24 points. That 24 would be divided by 2 to produce the 12 percentage-point gain the school would have to achieve in at least 2 percentage-point increments per year until the 2016-17 school year.
Arkansas schools would be labeled as “achieving” or “needs improvement” based on whether their overall student bodies made the prescribed annual gains and whether a subgroup of at least 40 students who are from lowincome families, special education and/or learning to speak English made the prescribed gains.
High schools also would have to make annual gains in their graduation rates.
The accountability plan customizes the achievement goals for each school, Arkansas Education Department officials have said. It would require schools that have lower percentages of proficient students to make greater annual gains over the six years.
Additionally, achievement targets would be established for each subgroup of 40 or more students at a school — be they white, black, Hispanic, poor, disabled or learning to speak English. The annual progress of those subgroups would be reported publicly.
Within the category of “achieving” schools, some schools would be identified as “exemplary.”
The state’s lowest-achieving schools — approximately the bottom 5 percent — would be categorized as “needs improvement priority schools” and subject to interventions that would result in systemic change.
Another category — “needs improvement focus schools” — would include the 10 percent of schools with the greatest achievement gaps between the overall student body and the student subgroup that includes students from poor families, students with disabilities and/ or students who are learning English.
The federal education department last year invited states to seek waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 when Congress failed to reauthorize the now 10-year-old version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Eleven states applied for waivers late last year and recently received approval. Additional states were expected to seek waivers by the Feb. 28 deadline. States that don’t receive waivers or do not apply would have to proceed with efforts to have all students achieve at proficient levels on state tests by the end of the 2014 school year and face the possible loss of federal education funding if they aren’t successful.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 02/29/2012