Alabama Unveils Post-NCLB Plans
The State Board of Education got a look at the world beyond No Child Left Behind on Tuesday morning, and state education officials said they hoped it would be one where schools and school officials would be better equipped to improve student achievement.
The criteria, part of the Alabama State Department of Education’s Plan 2020, includes proposals to identify “priority schools”—which could include schools with low graduation rates or low achievement test scores—and “focus schools,” with large achievement gaps between various subgroups.
State Superintendent Tommy Bice said the state had the “same expectation” for all groups to be 100 percent proficient.
“We now own the fact that there are differences between the groups, and some groups have further to go,” he said.
Plan 2020 also includes a new school performance index, using seven to eight criteria and a 200-point system to determine performance, including attendance, achievement and local indicators.
Those criteria would be added up into an average, but Bice said it was “really important” that the schools be judged on the criteria itself and not the weighted average. Bice said the system would be a part of the grading system currently under development that is expected to play a major role in evaluating schools under the Alabama Accountability Act.
The U.S. Department of Education last month granted the state a waiver from most of the requirements of No Child Left Behind, including the requirement to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards, which would have required all state schools to reach 100 percent proficiency by 2014.
School officials said the new system would be phased in over the next two years. Bice said that No Child Left Behind “was absolutely what we needed” when it was first enacted, as it forced schools to focus on groups that were underachieving.
“Regretfully, as it’s gone forward ... it’s had diminishing returns for those same populations,” he said.
School board members were supportive of the measures.
“We know how to get from Point A to Point B,” said Charles Elliott, elected as vice president of the board Tuesday. “We’re going to have to make sure our colleagues in the Legislature understand that we know how to get there, and we have to get there, but it takes your alignment with resources to get there.”
Vol. 32, Issue 37
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