NCLB waivers and making AYP in 2012!

NCLB waivers and making AYP in 2012!

State education systems are playing roulette once again hoping for an educational miracle. They've tried to help all students meet or exceed the NCLB AYP mandates the last ten years with minimal success. Now they are scrambling to get waivers to be excused from the mandates all at the same time they are supposedly raising the standards under the CCSS mandates. The original NCLB mandate was to move all students including at risk general education students and special education students to meet a minimal reading and math standard. The main argument against NCLB was in part the special education mandate that special education students must meet the same standards as their regular education peers. The problems is many regular education students in Title I schools are not meeting the minimal standards let alone the special education population.  Title I schools with the highest at risk populations have had very little success reaching the NCLB mandates and goals, thus not making AYP. States education systems are worried that 80% their schools will not meet AYP in 2012-2013 and be forced into some very poor educational choices. In this time of educational upheaval and uncertainty we are adding the CCSS mandates that are even more rigorous and challenging. What is the thinking?

The strange solution, we will be going in two educational directions the next two years, giving some states waivers to avoid the NCLB AYP penalties and at the same time adopting higher CCSS standards! What is the thinking of politicians and the business élite cutting funding and asking for even more? We will push the CCSS at a time we can't even meet a minimal standard with less and less funding. Teachers today have less and less political, administrative, and parental buy in to meet these goals, yet we will be the ones held accountable. Sean Taylor