Alexander, Frist Applaud Tennessee's Selection for Greater Flexibility Under No Child Left Behind

Alexander, Frist Applaud Tennessee's Selection for Greater Flexibility Under No Child Left Behind

U.S. Senators Bill Frist (R-TN) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) praised today's announcement from the U.S. Department of Education that Tennessee has been granted additional flexibility under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced this morning that Tennessee was chosen to participate in a pilot program allowing the state to use a "growth-based accountability model" to track student achievement under NCLB.

"The approval of Tennessee's growth model provides us with an opportunity to look at new ways of evaluating data on student achievement," Frist said. "I am proud of Tennessee's use of the flexibility provided under the No Child Left Behind Act and believe that, coupled with the recently approved assessment system, this accountability model will give educators the tools necessary to ensure a quality education for every child in our state."

"Tennessee is demonstrating, once again, its commitment to providing a quality education for all of our students," Alexander said. "Our state will be able to use this new flexibility to better measure student achievement and school district progress to make sure that all our school children can read and do math. As we look ahead to reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, we will need to clearly understand the impact of alternatives such as the growth model to the important question of measuring student achievement. I'm pleased that Tennessee has received this new flexibility, and I look forward to seeing the results of the pilot initiative."

The "growth-based accountability model" pilot program is a new initiative of the U.S. Department of Education under NCLB that is intended to examine additional methods of accountability for measuring student achievement. Growth-based accountability models track individual student achievement from one year to the next, giving schools credit for student improvement over time. The Department will carefully and rigorously evaluate growth models and their alignment with NCLB in order to share detailed information with other states and to inform the Congress and other policy makers.

http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1009&Month=5&Year=2006