NEW RULES FOR GRADUATION RATES, ANNUAL REPORT CARDS, NAEP, AND TITLE I

Regulations recently issued by the Secretary have changed many NCLB-related processes and requirements, including but not limited to the following:

• States and districts must adopt a new national standard for calculating and reporting disaggregated high school graduation rates as soon as possible, but by 2010-2011;
• States and districts must include on their annual report cards the most recent NAEP reading and mathematics results for the state and to also include the participation rates for students with disabilities and for limited English proficient students;
• States and districts must toughen restructuring penalties for schools at the end of the Title I SIP process.

The actual regulations are technically quite detailed, and will be published in the Federal Register tomorrow (October 29). A prepublication version is available at http://federalregister.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2008-25270_PI.pdf (This link may expire after official publication.)

TIP: These regulations were posted for public comment back in April. Even though these regulations affect about 16,000 school districts, the U.S. Department of Education reported that it only received 400 comments. A similar request for public comment from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this year generated over 300,000 comments.

ANOTHER TIP: The announcement was made via a Webcast from South Carolina, which will be archived for later viewing. See http://www.scetv.org/index.php/video/live_event/secretary_spellings_webcast