NCLB waiver could cost state $3 billion
CSBA, ACSA favor a modified reauthorization
Published: December 1, 2011
Tight timelines, challenging requirements and what California State Board of Education member James D. Aschwanden called “jaw-dropping” cost estimates all figured in the State Board’s consideration last month of the conditional waivers the Obama administration is offering from key provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The board deferred action until its Jan. 11-12 meeting, missing the first waiver application deadline of Nov. 14; two more application periods will follow in 2012. Regardless of when states apply, a waiver would exempt them and their Title I schools from 10 key NCLB requirements in the 2012-13 school year, including suspension of the federal determination of “adequate yearly progress” in bringing all student subgroups to proficiency in English and math.
But the cost in dollars and policy changes has prompted some education leaders—including CSBA and, separately, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson—to instead call for federal regulatory relief without conditions.
Conditions come with a cost
A California Department of Education staff report prepared for the State Board reports that states seeking to qualify for the U.S. Department of Education’s conditional waivers must commit to:
- College- and career-ready expectations for all students
- State-developed differentiated recognition, accountability and support
- Supporting effective instruction and leadership
- Reducing duplication and unnecessary burden
“Projected cost estimates for statewide implementation of waiver conditions range from $2.4 billion to $3.1 billion. This estimate reflects materials adoption and purchase, professional development for all teachers, development and statewide implementation of a teacher and principal evaluation system, statewide implementation of teacher collaboration time, and assessment and accountability development costs,” the staff report says. An addendum details cost ranges and potential savings and breaks them down to the local educational agency level.
Questions arose about the estimates and their implications, leading State Board members to request additional information for their January meeting. Complying with waiver conditions would be challenging and expensive at a time when “we are still in a fiscal crisis,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the panel’s nonvoting secretary.
“I continue to believe that the best answer for addressing a bad law is to replace it with a good one,” Torlakson said of NCLB in a formal statement after the meeting. That reinforced his Aug. 23 letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, when Torlakson criticized the waiver proposal that was then under development and questioned the administration’s authority to impose conditions. Instead he proposed “that California be permitted to freeze sanctions and mandatory identification required under NCLB” at the 2010-11 level for the current school year.
“The conditional nature of the waivers presents problems for California,” Torlakson wrote then, and “would mark dramatic deviations from the existing policies required under NCLB. States would be asked to make commitments beyond NCLB with no commensurate funding to provide the state capacity to implement such requirements. The appropriate forum for consideration of any new legal mandates is through the reauthorization process involving transparency and Congressional democratic debate.”
CSBA, ACSA call for ‘immediate regulatory relief’
A joint resolution adopted by CSBA and the Association of California School Administrators sends a similar message, declaring the two associations in support of the long-overdue congressional reauthorization of a modified Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as NCLB is also called. In the interim, the resolution calls for “immediate regulatory relief for the 2011-12 school year.”
“We urge the Department of Education to exercise their regulatory authority to relieve school districts from the constraints of current statutes, keeping schools from being held hostage while Congress moves forward with complete reauthorization,” the resolution says.
“We request that this relief be straight regulatory relief, not waivers. Schools deserve straight regulatory relief, and not the additional requirements or conditions that often come with waivers.”
11 states meet first waiver deadline
The stakes are high, as NCLB’s annual requirements for “adequate yearly progress” among all student subgroups continue to escalate. State schools chief Torlakson has warned that as many as 80 percent of California’s Title I schools risk being labeled failures under NCLB this school year—a figure that’s projected to reach 100 percent nationwide by the end of 2013-14 as the federal AYP requirements continue to ramp up.
States are clamoring for relief. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have signaled their intent to apply for a waiver; nearly a dozen met the first application deadline in November, which was just 52 days after President Obama himself released the long-anticipated waiver plan. A second deadline will follow in mid-February next year, and a third will follow in June.
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