Washington State Waiting for Washington, D.C. on Waiver

From Education Week:

All eyes have been on Washington state since lawmakers there adjourned last month without making a key change to their teacher-evaluation system that would have enabled the state to hang on to its flexibility from the mandates of the much-maligned No Child Left Behind Act.

And now, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is on the verge of yanking Washington state's waiver, several sources say. An official decision is likely by the end of month—and if the waiver is pulled, as expected, the move would make the Evergreen State the first to lose its flexibility.

Duncan called Randy Dorn, the state schools chief, Tuesday to discuss the waiver situation, but the state didn't get official word during that conversation that the flexibility would be pulled, Nathan Olson, a spokesman for Dorn, told my colleague Andrew Ujifusa.

"We'd hoped this phone call would yield a simple yes-or-no answer to the question about whether we'd continue the waiver," said Olson. "We did not get that answer [Tuesday]." In the meantime, the state is proceeding on the assumption that it will lose its flexibility.

Updated at 4:44pm EST, from the DOE:
"We are in touch with Washington officials on the state's request to extend Elementary and Secondary Education Act flexibility. Washington has made us aware that they are unable to meet the state's commitment to create a teacher- and principal-evaluation and -support system with multiple measures, including student growth based on state assessments and other measures of professional practice. The Department has not issued a final decision yet, but we recognize that the state needs to know soon as officials prepare local budgets for next school year."

Superintendent Randy Dorn spoke before the Charter Commission recently.  Here's two choice things he said (these are my tweets):

WA Super Dorn says 95% of districts would send "failing" scl letters 2 parents but says public won't want to fund McCleary b/c of letters ?  He thinks that the general public will not wonder why 95%(!) of schools are labelled "failing" and say, "See, don't fund McCleary because it's not worth it."  I do not follow this logic at all.

In this tweet, I was perplexed that Dorn thought that the public, upon hearing that 95% of Washington state schools got "failing" letters, might not think, "Hmm, that can't be true.  That's a lot of schools to be named as "failing."  Meaning, I don't think the public would take it all that seriously.  Or, at least not to the point of say, all the schools are failing, therefore McCleary shouldn't be fulfilled.

WA State Super Dorn admits to Charter Cmmn that districts don't "lose" NCLB money, $$$ just set-aside from district budgets. Oh.  And that's what the WEA pointed out but no one wanted to hear it.  He also admitted that any money not used from the set aside (and districts generally don't use even half their NCLB slated dollars), those dollars go right back into the General Fund.

I note that it was pointed out that both SPS and Tacoma didn't use more than one-third of their NCLB dollars in the last few years.  

Dorn does think that Duncan will smack down Washington State (that's my term, not his). 

 I'm betting on a lesser punishment but we'll just have to see.