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Ohio's Draft Waiver for NCLB

The Ohio Department of Education has a draft waiver for NCLB. The headline making change is to move away from the current school ranking system to a letter grade (A-f). Other proposals in the draft include:

  • Changing the current differentiated accountability system to identify and support the lowest performing Title 1 schools.
  • Greater flexibility in the use of federal professional development funds as a trade off with the higher standards and transparency in the accountability system.
  • Schools and districts will need to complete fewer forms and reports to use federal dollars.
  • Focusing on low-achieving schools to ensure compliance with reform models and mandates, including those in the state budget (HB 153).
  • Ensuring a system of rewards and recognitions exist for districts and schools that meet designated achievement levels or levels of expected growth.
  • Improving federally approved Differentiated Accountability Model and ensuring that it aligns with state accountability system and consequence.
  • Phasing out the Highly Qualified Teachers measure on report card and as data used to determine equitable distribution of teachers and replacing it with four evaluation effectiveness ratings.
  • Continuing to expand and provide technical support for school-wide pooling of funds in eligible buildings and expanding transferability to allow schools in improvement status to transfer Title funding.
  • Optional flexibility to permit community learning centers to use 21st century funds in supporting expanded learning time during the school day in addition to non-school hours, according to the draft.

Further information can be found here at the ODE website.