A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

(3) Waivers to Extend the Deadline for Content and Performance Standards

• Waivers to extend the deadline for developing state content and student performance standards were the most common waivers granted to SEAs in 1997 and 1998.

Waivers granted to state educational agencies help to strengthen state school reform efforts, better align state and federal school improvement initiatives, ease consolidation of administrative funds, and increase the flexibility available to the school districts in states.

The majority of the waiver requests from SEAs in 1997 and 1998 focused on the deadline for the ESEA Title I requirement that all states have challenging content and student performance standards in place. The law required that by the beginning of the 1997-98 school year, all states must establish or adopt challenging state content and student performance standards with at least three levels of proficiency for three grade spans in at least reading and mathematics. While many states have adequately demonstrated to the Department that they have met this requirement, other states have needed additional time to complete their standards development process.

From September 1997 through September 1998, the Department granted waivers to the District of Columbia and 31 states that were not able to meet the deadline for adopting standards at the beginning of the 1997-98 school year ^{[ 6 ]}. The Department has made it clear that it will not waive the fundamental requirement for the state to develop or adopt challenging and aligned content and performance standards. These waivers only extend the period of time states have to implement their standards. In 1997, 6 waivers also extended deadlines for completing state content standards (for Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Wyoming). All other states have sufficiently demonstrated that state content standards have been adopted and implemented ^{[ 7 ]}. In 1998, three of these states -- Georgia, Idaho, and Iowa - continued to require waivers of the deadline for adopting state content standards. (Figure 5)

As of September 30, 1998, 22 of the 32 states that received standards deadline waivers in 1997 through the spring and summer of 1998 had requested additional time (until spring and summer 1999) to complete the development of student performance standards. In many cases, states are defining performance standards by using examples of student work collected from pilot tests of their state assessments. Many of these assessments (which are not required to be finalized until the 2000-2001 school year) are being administered for the first time in 1998. Therefore, states such as Massachusetts, for example, have requested extensions of the deadline into 1999 to set performance standards as assessments are finalized.

In cases where states have required additional time to complete the standards development process, the Department requires waiver applicants to provide a detailed description of both the progress the state has made to date in the development of standards and the timeline within which the state expects to complete the development of standards. Each state must submit a detailed interim progress report during the period for which the waiver is granted. The Department offers technical assistance through a team of peer consultants to all states operating under a waiver of the standards deadline.

Footnotes:

^{[ 6 ]} Waivers of the deadline for implementing state content and student performance standards through spring and summer 1998 were granted to: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. [ Return to text ]

^{[ 7 ]} States are not required to submit their standards to the Department for review but they are required to submit evidence that standards are in place and that the state used a rigorous process to develop the standards. A panel of SEA officials and experts on standards and assessments from the field selected by the Department reviews this evidence. [ Return to text ]

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