Official: State's No Child Left Behind waiver request needs work

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A U.S. Department of Education official says Oregon's application to escape portions of the No Child Left Behind law needs more work.

Assistant Secretary Michael Yudin praised the state's bid in a letter last month, but identified several components that require clarification, development or revision.

Oregon officials hope to scrap the federal law's push to continually improve test scores with a new plan based on achievement compacts that school districts sign with the state. They also seek to replace the No Child Left Behind's rigid sanctions with a system of support for struggling schools.

Yudin, in his letter to Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo, said Oregon must submit more information about how it will set goals or targets for schools under its new plan, as well as more detail on the state's approach to teacher and principal evaluations.

The Obama administration also wants the state to further differentiate how it would intervene to help low-performing "priority" schools versus schools that are rated slightly higher, called "focus" schools.

"We had, to a large extent, sort of conflated the two categories," said Ben Cannon, education adviser to Gov. John Kitzhaber.

Cannon said the state, which submitted its application in January, is sending additional material to the Education Department this week and hopes to get the waiver approved before the end of the school year.

He said the team working on Oregon's application has been in almost daily contact with the group of reviewers at the Education Department.

"The best thing I can compare it to is a student who is working really closely with a teacher to improve a paper," he said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.