This week the Department of Education saysit will release details of New Hampshire’s application for a waiver for flexibility from the controversial federal education law, No Child Left Behind. The DOE will release a draft on Thursday, and submit the final waiver application to the federal department of education the following week.
The waiver request is expected to include recommendations for a system to evaluate teacher and principal performance. State officials say that local school districts will have flexibility as to how much of those recommendations they adopt.
The application will also include a plan for changing to a new set of standardized tests, mostly leaving behind the New England Common Assessment Program, or NECAP, by 2014.
The Obama administration announced states could apply for waivers last September; since then 33 states have been granted flexibility.
Initially New Hampshire had decided to pass on applying for a waiver, saying the deadline was too tightto plan the sweeping changes required.