Eau Claire (WQOW)- Wisconsin has joined the list of states exempted from following the No Child Left Behind education law. On Friday, President Obama made Wisconsin and Washington the 25th and 26th states to join the list.
"The requirements for No Child Left Behind were really unattainable," says Altoona Superintendent Dr. Connie Biedron.
The 10-year-old law requires all students to achieve proficient math and reading scores by 2014.
"No Child Left Behind as it relates to accountability was broken and it really did not measure in any specific ways how well a school is doing," points out Wisconsin State Superintendent Tony Evers. "It was a pass fail thing. You either met this bar and you were a good school or you didn't meet it and you're a horrible school."
The waiver allows the state to manage education, not the federal government. In exchange for joining the exemption list, states have to promise to improve how students are prepared and evaluated at school. The change will be in place in time for the upcoming school year.
"Now there's another laundry list of things that we have to ramp up and start doing but they are more reasonable," says Biedron.
"Wisconsin will adopt a comprehensive accountability index that uses multiple measures, not a single test score, but multiple measures that are much more comprehensive to classify schools in one of five easy to understand categories that will help determine how much intervention and support schools need from the state," explains U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
"I think this is a wake-up call to say we can't do school the way we've been doing it for the last 100 years," Biedron exclaims.
Duncan says that Wisconsin is also developing a program to identify problems in critical areas, such as drop-out rates and student absenteeism.
