![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
The Education Flexibility (Ed-Flex) Partnership Demonstration Program is an unprecedented partnership between the federal government and states. Ed-Flex allows the Secretary of Education to delegate to up to 12 Goals 2000 7 states the authority to waive for their school districts and schools statutory or regulatory requirements of several ESEA programs and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act. Specifically, Ed-Flex states may waive most requirements of ESEA Titles I, II, IV, VI, and VII (Part C) and of the Perkins Act.8
Ed-Flex is a demonstration program designed to give states increased flexibility in exchange for increased accountability for improved student achievement. The same flexibility available in Ed-Flex states is available to school districts in all other states through the Department and the waiver authorities it administers.
On July 18, 1997, the Department finished selecting the Ed-Flex states. The 12 states are Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont. Each Ed-Flex state designed a waiver review process that holds school districts and schools affected by waivers accountable for improving the academic performance of their students.
Ed-Flex states must report annually to the Department on the waivers they grant. Earlier this year, the nine states selected prior to the 1996-97 school year submitted their first reports, which provided preliminary information about how they are administering their new waiver authority. In early 1998, the Department will receive annual reports from all 12 Ed-Flex states. Information from these reports will be summarized in future reports to Congress.
Based on the initial round of state reports and applications from the Ed-Flex states, the Department has made the following observations.
Observation #1: Strong state accountability systems appear to support effective implementation of Ed-Flex.
In exchange for the authority to grant waivers of federal requirements, Ed-Flex states were required by law to outline the methods they would use to ensure accountability for student achievement when they approved a waiver. As a result, states with well-developed accountability systems have been in the best position both to apply for Ed-Flex and to administer the waiver authority. While future state reports should tell more about accountability in Ed-Flex states, some information can be gleaned from the experience of the Texas Education Agency, which had approved the most waivers at the time the first state reports were submitted and has tightly tied its administration of Ed-Flex to its state assessment. Texas made the following comment, "Ed-Flex waivers provide the avenue for local educators to redirect the design and delivery of federal programs to supplement reform initiatives taken with state and local funds to achieve the state's high standards of performance for all students and for all student groups."
The experiences of the Ed-Flex states appear to reinforce the Department's observation that federal laws are not significant barriers to school reform. With the exceptions of Texas and Ohio, most Ed-Flex states granted very few waivers for the 1995-96 and 1996-97 school years. Oregon and Maryland granted one waiver each while Kansas granted 14 waivers.
The Texas Education Agency actively promoted the waivers as an option for school districts and closely tied the flexibility available to its school districts under Ed-Flex to the achievement of their students, as determined by the state assessment. Texas approved waivers of 14 different provisions, many on a "statewide" basis where, consistent with the state's Ed-Flex accountability requirements, any Texas school district may opt to take advantage of the flexibility defined by the statewide waiver. Texas also defined two categories of waivers, administrative and programmatic. The administrative waivers give additional administrative flexibility to approximately 550 school districts. The 254 programmatic waivers granted by the Texas Education Agency closely resemble those approved by the U.S. Department of Education for targeting requirements and the minimum poverty threshold for implementing schoolwide programs.
With Ed-Flex, participating states can integrate their authority to waive federal rules with their own processes for waiving state rules. They can also link approval of waivers to state school reform initiatives and state accountability systems. Similarly, since state educational agencies usually have closer relationships with school districts than the federal government does, they may be better positioned to provide technical assistance to districts exploring or operating under waivers.
At the same time, delegating waiver authority to several states greatly increases the number of people involved in administering waivers of federal requirements, and results in parallel processes for granting the same kinds of waivers that school districts may already seek from the U.S. Department of Education. In addition, the people who approve or disapprove waivers, wherever they are located, need to have a very good understanding of both the relevant program requirements and the waiver authorities; it may be that the federal government is best positioned to make decisions regarding federal requirements. Preliminary information suggests that decentralized decision-making may lead to states making somewhat different interpretations about the flexibility available in federal programs.
The Department will continue to review the effectiveness of Ed-Flex as additional state reports are received.
8 For provisions not covered by the Ed-Flex waiver authority, Ed-Flex states may request waivers from the U.S. Department of Education. Waivers also were granted in certain Ed-Flex states prior to their Ed-Flex designations. Appendix B lists waivers granted by the Department in Ed-Flex states as well as in other states.
[IV. The Department's Administration of the Waiver Authorities and ED-FLEX ]