Until a few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education was promising to announce its first wave of ESEA waiver approvals before the end of January. That deadline came and went without a peep about the reason for the delay. Was it the need to coordinate the announcement with the White House? The technical complexity of the proposals themselves? Politics?
While we’re waiting for the answers — which could come any day now — take a look at this nifty collection of documents compiled by the Associated Press. They’re process documents — no full approvals here, though Florida gets a lot of encouragement from the department — but the collection of departmental memos, state responses and peer reviewer notes offer perhaps another explanation for the wait: Maybe ED isn’t all that impressed with what states are proposing. We’ll know soon enough, but perhaps the department is heeding the warnings of analysts here and here that state recommendations could muddy the accountability waters and represent a significant retreat on NCLB’s push to narrow achievement gaps among student subgroups.
Photo Credit: Scott Spiegel
