Virginia Board of Education to Submit NCLB Waiver Application

The Virginia Board of Education will apply for a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education, citing inaccuracies in the way successful and improving Virginia schools are misidentified as failing under the provisions of the Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. According to a BOE press release, if the waiver is granted, Commonwealth schools would become exempt from the increasingly difficult to attain annual yearly progress (AYP) reading and math benchmarks required by the 10-year-old federal law. The VBOE seeks to merge state and federal requirements into a single system that is less restrictive. "The model the board is proposing would relieve Virginia schools from the overly prescriptive and unworkable dictates of the federal law while maintaining a tough and transparent accountability program," said Board President David M. Foster. NCLB dictates that Virginia schools receive a state accreditation rating and a federal AYP rating. In the waiver application, The VDOE proposes continuing the Commonwealth's Standards of Learning (SOL) program, which measures student achievement in English, math, science and history. "Based on preliminary feedback from federal education officials, and the similarities between Virginia’s waiver application and applications from other states that have already been approved, I am optimistic about federal approval," Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright said. The VDOE would prepare annual report cards that would  illustrate progress toward closing proficiency gaps within three groups including students with disabilities, African-American students and Hispanic students. "The new report cards will clearly show which schools are not making progress in raising the achievement of historically low-performing student subgroups to state standards," Wright said. In its application, the Board of Education requests approval of the waiver in time for the calculation of accountability ratings for 2012-2013.