DES MOINES — Officials at the U.S. Department of Education said the Iowa’s attempt to get a waiver from No Child Left Behind requirements lacks clarity and contains “low expectations” in some categories.

But they also gave the state high marks for “particularly strong” programs that focus on student achievement and a plan for teacher and school leader evaluation.

Iowa is one of 26 states and the District of Columbia seeking a waiver from some of the requirements from the federal No Child Left Behind Act that set annual student proficiency targets.

The letter from Acting Assistant Secretary of Education Michael Yudin to Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass gave the state until Tuesday to submit revisions to its application to move the process forward.

“We expected this back-and-forth on the waiver,” said Glass, who was attending a conference Wednesday in Seattle. He said officials in the state department of education and the U.S. Department of Education have spoken at least once a day since the letter.

“This is sort of the gauntlet we knew we would have to run through,” he said. “We had sent a 200-page application to them and some of that gets lost in translation. We’ve worked out a lot (of the issues) already.”

U.S. Department of Education reviewers cited the Iowa application for:

• A lack of clarity regarding the relation among components of the accountability model and how results will be used to identify schools and guide appropriate interventions. 
• The low expectations of the proposed long-range performance targets in the limited subgroup accountability captured in the formula for the Closing Gap Score. 
• Iowa’s acknowledged need for additional capacity to address needs of student groups, including English learners and students with disabilities.

The waiver request comes at the same time the Iowa Legislature is working through an education reform proposal that is still held up in negotiations.

Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, a former teacher who sits on the House Education Committee, said the reform package and the waiver application can move forward independently of one another.

“Early on, (Glass) suggested that we needed certain parts in education reform for the waiver,” she said. “But, clearly, when you look at the requirements, they don’t have to be in place at the time of application.”

The main issues highlighted in the letter were:

• The school accountability system outlined lacks clarity in how it identifies schools and how the results will be used. T
• he “closing gap” score does not sufficiently take into account the needs of subgroups within schools. 
• The long-term achievement goals for the state are not ambitious enough. 
• The application needs to more specifically address the needs of English language learners and students with disabilities.

It was not all bad news; the panel took the time to praise the state’s planned system to provide support for schools in the “priority” category of the accountability system.

The letter, which is dated April 17, originally set a deadline of May 1, for a revised application to be submitted, but Iowa has received some flexibility and will resubmit by the end of the week, according to Staci Hupp, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Education. 

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©2012 The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), Distributed by MCT Information Services