Waiving Away High School Graduation Rate Accountability?

In November 2011, eleven states submitted applications to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) for waivers from up to ten provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), now known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Although the state waiver process currently underway presents an opportunity to strengthen college and career readiness among the nation’s high school students, the waiver applications as submitted may also have the unintended consequence of weakening high school graduation rate accountability. New accountability systems proposed by states will likely weaken graduation rate accountability by only counting graduation rates as a modest part of complex indexes used to judge the effectiveness of schools.