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As with every other state where many high achieving schools will be labelled as failures by the year 2014 if they do not get a waiver from No Child Left Behind Act requirements. This federal law is poorly written and does not help low achieving students at all.

California is all set to take advantage of the waiver promised by the US Department of Education. The department at this juncture wishes to show that the largest state is not imposed with sanctions. One-eighth of our students studies in California.

Waiver application comes with a hot button issue. Teacher’s performance evaluations take into account the standardized test scores. This is vehemently opposed by California teachers unions.
Under the right conditions, someday, the state will definitely achieve this says Tom Toprlakson, the state Supt. He was talking to The Times editorial board. He however was opposed to the implementation of the concept from the beginning especially with the current tests being used by the State. The tests are set to be replaced in four year’s time.

What is required right now is a strong focus on making schools accountable and ensuring that they are meeting the set goals. It is necessary to give a lot more flexibility to the process in which they do this. Restructuring by the Obama administration will surely look into this and ensure a flexible progress measurement process.

While schools will be able to show commendable student proficiency, states will in turn be able to show school progress achievements such as higher rates of graduation and lower absenteeism rates.

Schools were hitherto labelled as failures if they did not meet the stringent goals for student subgroups under the No Child Left Behind program. Current programs must effectively address curriculum narrowing that has unfortunately occurred under the No Child Left Behind.

The focus is only on math and reading and there is a cut down on other subjects such as physical education and art. The administration can of course be challenged by the Republicans in Congress on whether or not to use the NCLB program. They must vote for using the plan with certain modifications if they wish to help students.

Every state will be helped by the Obama administration to get a NCLB waiver. This is made very clear by the administration which will in fact make this happen by working with states. A deal could be worked out between the Federal government and California if enhanced flexibility is offered by the Education Department.

Teacher evaluation method for instance should not be mandated right now even though the possibility of using this method can be evaluated. Los Angeles Unified School District worked out pilot programs where teachers participated in a more stringent process of evaluation on a voluntary basis.

A lot of intensive research must be conducted on whether it is indeed effective measuring teacher performance based on test scores. Rather than forcing California to forego a waiver, a better idea would be for Duncan to back off from mandate.