U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Deb Delisle will discuss the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility waiver extensions, renewals and implementation at the National Council of State Legislators (NCSL) Annual Legislative Summit on Wednesday, Aug. 20 at 10:30 a.m. CT.
ESEA has been due for Congressional reauthorization since 2007. In the absence of reauthorization, President Obama announced in September 2011 that the administration would grant waivers from parts of the law to qualified states, in exchange for state-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity and improve the quality of instruction. Flexibility has allowed states to move beyond the prescriptive, one-size-fits-all mandates of the federal law, to be more innovative, and to engage in continued improvement in ways that benefit educators and students. The one-year extension of ESEA flexibility allows the states to continue moving forward on the ambitious work they began with their initial flexibility requests. The Department is reviewing and approving requests from states for one-year extensions to ESEA flexibility on a rolling basis.
Forty-three states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico currently have ESEA flexibility, 35 of which expire this summer. Of those, 32 submitted an extension request. Eighteen states: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and Wisconsin have been granted extensions since July 3.