HD49 - A Plan to Identify Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 That Are Not Integral or Necessary to the Commonwealth of Virginia's Statewide Educational Program (HB 1427 and SB 410) andThe Federal No Child Left Behind Act Waiver and Exemption Requests Made by the Virginia Board of Education (HB 1428)


Executive Summary:
This report describes a plan to identify provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2OOl (NCLB) that are not integral or necessary to the Commonwealth of Virginia's statewide educational program. The report explains that Virginia supports the primary goal and basic tenets of NCLB since they are in direct alignment with the system of standards and accountability already established in the state. However, Virginia faces challenges in meeting the requirements of NCLB related to the policies and procedures required by the United States Department of Education (USED) in implementation of the components of the law.

The overall challenges Virginia has faced in implementation of the legislation described in the report are summarized below.

• The testing and assessment instruments required for use with students with disabilities (SWD) and limited English proficient (LEP) students.
• The criteria for determining highly qualified teachers (HQT) and interpretation of the highly qualified criteria in the law.
• The criteria to identify schools and divisions for school improvement and the accompanying sanctions.
• The administrative burden that has been placed on the state and local school divisions in reporting the data requirements as specified under the law.

The report also includes a summary of the waiver and exemption requests the Virginia Board of Education has made to USED on an annual basis since March 2003.