Dive Brief:
- U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan promises to renew Washington state's waiver from the Bush-era No Child Left Behind laws if it adds student test scores to teacher evaluations, but many of the state's union members and lawmakers are unwilling to make the concession, arguing that the demand amounts to too much federal oversight.
- Three other states — Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona — also butted heads with the federal government over the evaluations. Yet, Washington is the only one that has yet to take steps to resolves the issues.
- Washington schools chief Randy Dorn is trying to convince legislators to make the change and add student scores to the teacher evaluations.
Dive Insight:
While everyone agrees NCLB is an ill-conceived policy, until the federal government formally changes the law, all states are tied to its somewhat unfathomable expectations. To remedy this, and keep schools open, the federal government awards waivers to states. Those that don't get waivers must resort to Bush-era policies. It seems somewhat cruel to force widely deemed unreasonable policies on states, which is what is happening with Washington.
Dorn argues that administrators are already looking at test scores when evaluating teachers, so making it a law shouldn't be a big deal. Critics, however, believe its a federal oversight and unfair of the U.S. Department of Education to remove the waiver just because the state doesn't want to bow to all of D.C.'s suggestions. As the Washington Education Association argues, the state was complimented by Duncan and his department for making strides — and these accomplishments happened sans scores in teacher evaluations.