California Districts Collaborate On Common Core, NCLB Waiver Bid

Education Week (1/23, Maxwell) reports that a group of eight districts in California has united "to move ahead on rolling out the Common Core State Standards and designing new teacher evaluations based in part on student performance," noting that officials expressed frustrations with the pace and direction of state-level reforms. "The districts, which include the Los Angeles and San Francisco school systems and enroll more than 1 million students altogether, are also mounting a major breakaway from California in seeking their own waiver from mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act." Should Education Secretary Arne Duncan approve the district-level waiver bid, it "could dramatically alter the relationship between the districts and the state education department when it comes to federal accountability. Known as CORE-the California Office to Reform Education-the member districts also include Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland, and Clovis and Sanger in the Central Valley."