Georgia gets renewed waiver from No Child Left Behind
Georgia schools will get another three years of freedom from requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that it was granting Georgia and six other states plus Washington, D.C. a renewal of their existing waivers from the law’s requirements that schools meet a benchmark called “adequate yearly progress.”
The much-maligned measure required schools to produce an ever-expanding crop of students who could pass their state’s annual standardized tests. All students at a school would eventually be required to pass, or that school would face sanctions. Georgia was granted its first waiver in 2012; this renewal extends that to summer 2018.
Congress has been attempting to rewrite the No Child law since 2007, with little progress until a bipartisan Senate committee voted unanimously for a new version earlier this year. Until a new law is passed, Georgia must continue to seek renewals for its waiver or face a return of the old requirements.
The federal education agency praised Georgia for changes it made in exchange for the waiver, including the development of a school report card called the College and Career Ready Performance Index. Georgia also has found ways to identify and help under-performing schools and has allowed middle school students to take high school-level courses, a U.S. education department statement said.
About the Author
Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.
