The nine California districts seeking a first-of-its-kind waiver under the No Child Left Behind Act have made key changes to their proposed accountability system in an effort to win approval from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Most notably, the districts are dropping plans to count only the test scores from the last grade in each school for accountability purposes, according to a revised plan released last week.
The districts, known as CORE, for California Office to Reform Education, also lowered the accountability-subgroup “n size” to 20 from 100. That’s the number of students needed in each school’s subgroup for the scores to count for accountability purposes.
Under the revised plan, 60 percent of a school’s rating would be based on test scores, graduation rates, and other academic factors; 20 percent on social and emotional factors, such as discipline rates; and 20 percent on cultural factors, such as climate surveys.
