Tight Script for NCLB Waivers in Turnaround Arena

States seeking leeway from the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act are proposing ways to execute the Obama administration's playbook for turning around their lowest-performing schools.

Although the U.S. Department of Education gave states significant flexibility on other areas in crafting their waiver applications, the administration was much more specific when it came to the right prescriptions for improving the bottom 5 percent of schools in every state, defined as "priority schools" in the waiver process.

In the turnaround area, the department is requiring that states spell out how they would address such "principles" as extending learning time, using student achievement data to inform instruction, putting in place an instructional program backed up by research, and considering nonacademic factors in student achievement, such as students'...