Nearly a decade after the passage of the No Child Left Behind law, Massachusetts moved yesterday to replace some of its strictest provisions with a more flexible system that would require the state’s public schools to show steady improvement over the next six years.
The state’s proposal would give schools more latitude to reach academic goals than the 2002 No Child act, which has been praised for focusing on struggling students but criticized for unfairly labeling solid schools as sub-par.
The plan calls for schools to cut in half the rate of students failing to reach proficiency in English, math, and science on standardized tests by 2017. Schools that consistently fall short would face stricter state oversight.
By comparison, No Child called for all students to reach proficiency in math and English by 2014.
Critics panned the proposed shift as a retreat that would let schools off the hook and erode hard-won progress at long-troubled schools. But proponents said the change would maintain high standards while providing a more accurate picture of overall school performance.
“We will flag schools with the greatest achievement gaps,’’ said Mitchell Chester, the state’s education commissioner. “We will call them out.’’
The 85-page plan was submitted to the US Department of Education yesterday. Federal officials are expected to grant the waiver that would make it official, and the plan would take effect next school year.
Although the state is seeking a reprieve from federal standards, the new proposal shares many of the law’s aims and would continue its emphasis on testing and identifying those schools where performance lags. The MCAS would still be the primary measuring stick.
Many educators have chafed at the federal measure, calling it punitive and unrealistic, and say the broad rebukes are akin to crying wolf. Based on the most recent round of MCAS results, for instance, more than 90 percent of Massachusetts school systems missed requirements under the federal law.
“It creates much more noise than signal,’’ Chester said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where he was briefing US officials.
State officials, however, noted the difficulty of their goal. Over the past six years, the proposal stated, just 16 percent of Massachusetts schools reduced their proficiency gaps in English by half, while 19 percent did so in mathematics.
The Massachusetts proposal would usher in a new system that builds on accountability measures approved in last year’s sweeping effort to overhaul state education rules. Since the law, the state has tapped 34 schools with chronically low test scores for overhauls, and early returns have shown appreciable gains.
