MDE Listens to Local District Input and Gets Federal Approval for Revisions to Flexibility Waiver

Contact: Martin Ackley, Director of Public and Governmental Affairs 517) 241-4395
Agency: Education

April 8, 2013

LANSING - Improvements to Michigan's flexibility waiver to the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will allow local school districts to continue driving student achievement while staying accountable that all students are learning, State Superintendent Mike Flanagan announced today.

The U.S. Department of Education has approved the Michigan Department of Education's (MDE) request to amend its original flexibility to the restrictions of the decade-old federal education reforms, known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

After Michigan's initial flexibility approval in July 2012, MDE began implementing and monitoring how the changes were affecting schools and students.

"The federal flexibility established ambitious, yet achievable, targets on student achievement progress for schools to reach each year, as well as suitable accountability and transparency," Flanagan said. "Now, we want to make sure that the reforms remain practical when put into action," Flanagan said.

MDE listened to input from school districts across the state and convened a work group of education stakeholders to reach consensus on what adjustments should be considered. Flanagan then submitted the proposed amendments to the U.S. Department of Education (USED) for its review and approval.

The revisions to Michigan's flexibility plan approved by USED include:

• The elimination of the requirement that local school districts with one or more Priority or Focus schools set aside and use 20 percent of its federal Title I funds to provide transportation for public school choice, if requested by parents. Providing transportation for public school choice still is an allowable use of Title I funds, however, if a local district elects to use those funds for that purpose.

• MDE will revise the calculations for its "Top to Bottom" list to minimize the impact of "outlier scores" on the overall metric, as well as on Priority and Focus schools. This would address a situation where a school was identified as a Focus School that ranked in the 75th percentile of the Top to Bottom list, or whose bottom 30 percent proficiency rate is higher than the state average proficiency rate in at least two subject areas.
  

• Revises the requirements for Focus Schools to set-aside increasing percentages of their federal Title I funds for academic intervention strategies, depending on how many consecutive years that school is identified as a Focus School.

[A Focus School is one of the 10 percent of Michigan school buildings that has the largest achievement gap between its top 30 percent and bottom 30 percent of students. A Priority School is in the lowest performing five percent of school buildings in the state.]

Federal flexibility allows local school districts more freedom in how they use some of their federal dollars to improve student achievement and close achievement gaps; recognizes schools that are meeting or exceeding achievement goals; ensures students have effective educators in their schools; and includes in the school accountability scorecard: science, social studies, and writing, in addition to the NCLB-required math and English language arts.