Virginia seeks flexibility in No Child Left Behind law

Virginia is moving forward with its plan to seek flexibility from certain requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

On Thursday, the Board of Education unanimously supported on first review the state's application — with a few minor edits — to the U.S. Department of Education for those waivers.

Virginia's application blends state and federal requirements into one system and eliminates the misidentification of schools as failing, said Veronica Tate, director of the Virginia Department of Education's office of program administration and accountability.

The 29 performance indicators for Adequate Yearly Progress — the NCLB benchmarks — are discontinued in Virginia's application, and state Standards of Accreditation proficiency targets in the four content areas will serve as the foundation for performance expectations, she said.

Current state proficiency targets are 70 percent pass rates for all grades and subjects except third-grade history/social science (50 percent), third-grade science (50 percent) and English for grades three through five (75 percent).

For the 2012-13 school year, the targets will increase to 70 percent in all subjects except English, which remains 75 percent for elementary school students and increases to 75 percent for middle school and end-of-course assessments.

Virginia's application eliminates school improvement labels but assigns school accreditation and identifies proficiency gaps that may exist in Virginia's lower-performing subgroups of students.

"In our public reporting … we would report on the number of schools fully accredited with proficiency gaps," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright said. "Obviously, if you are fully accredited with no proficiency gaps, that is the premier goal you want to achieve."

The application classifies the three subgroups as Gap Group 1 (students with disabilities, English-language learners and economically disadvantaged students); Gap Group 2 (African-American students not already included in Group 1); and Gap Group 3 (Hispanic students not already included in Group 1).

"I think we have a strong application here," said board member David M. Foster. "It is essential that no one mistake our purpose here. It is to get rid of the worst of No Child Left Behind, not to falter in our determination to see improvement across the board and in closing the proficiency gaps."

NCLB drew criticism for having pass rate benchmarks reach 100 percent for all student subgroups by 2014. This year, nearly 61 percent of schools in central Virginia failed to meet NCLB benchmarks in reading and mathematics.

The application reflects the state's current reform efforts that include the adoption and implementation of revised content standards that reflect college-and-career-ready expectations in reading and mathematics.

If the state's application is approved on the federal level, it will go into effect for the 2012-13 school year based on 2011-12 results on Standards of Learning assessments.

Board member K. Rob Krupicka said the goal of the application is to provide clarity to the way Virginia schools are evaluated and rated. But he added that reform efforts don't stop with this request, which he called the first step.

"The next step is actually to take a hard look at what we're doing within our own assessment and accreditation system and evaluate where there is room for changes so that we can maintain the level of focus … on achievement gaps and proficiency gaps," he said.

Angela A. Ciolfi, legal director for the JustChildren, a Legal Aid Justice Center program that advocates on behalf of low-income students, expressed concern about some aspects of the application.

She asked the board not to separate subgroup performance and accountability because it will create two sets of schools — those that have incentives to close achievement gaps and those that do not.

Some schools may simply focus their resources on the 70 or 75 percent of students who are most likely to pass, she said.

"I think the board is certainly focused on the right things, which is making sure that this application is not an excuse to backtrack on closing the achievement gap, but I still don't think the application sets ambitious — but achievable — annual targets for closing the achievement gap," said Ciolfi.