NY gets waiver for No Child Left Behind

New York and seven other states have won the right to abandon elements of the decade-old No Child Left Behind education policy, federal officials announced Tuesday.

The law, passed during President George W. Bush's administration, is credited with helping identify groups of underperforming students. It has been criticized for its focus on testing.

"The waiver lets New York move away from NCLB requirements that were unproductive or unrealistic," state Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. said in a statement. "We're making a new set of promises to our students."

State education officials said the waiver will allow New York to designate "focus" districts to be "targeted for additional support as they work to improve low-performing schools." Districts also will have greater freedom to allocate resources to help struggling students, they said.

The move means those states -- including Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island -- can focus on the current administration's Race To The Top initiative. Connecticut, which also was granted a waiver, failed three times in its bid for RTTT funding.

RTTT, created three years ago, is a competitive, grant-based education reform program meant to boost student performance and increase accountability among educators.

New York, in an effort to win more than $700 million in RTTT funding, enacted a controversial teacher evaluation plan that links educator ratings and student achievement. Officials said they granted the waivers on the condition applicants create state-developed plans to prepare all students for college and/or a career. States must show they are focusing aid on the neediest students and support effective teaching and leadership. Tuesday's action brings to 19 the number of states that have been granted NCLB waivers. Requests from 17 others and the District of Columbia are under review.

Alan B. Groveman, head of the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association and superintendent of the Connetquot school district, said he wishes Congress had worked to revise NCLB rather than grant waivers on a state-by-state basis.

The exemptions come with their own set of requirements, he said, leaving states beholden to additional mandates. "NCLB is a comprehensive piece of legislation that needed to be reworked from the ground up," he said.

Key to New York's approval was its teacher evaluation system that links as much as 40 percent of an educator's rating to student performance. Groveman said the evaluation system is flawed and was rushed into place.

Gary D. Bixhorn, chief operating officer of Eastern Suffolk BOCES, called the granting of the waiver a "positive development." Schools that have been struggling to meet both NCLB and RTTT mandates are now free from one set of regulations, he said. "Taking NCLB out of the mix . . . hopefully will reduce some of the duplicative things being done," he said. "The untangling of the sets of requirements will allow schools to move forward."