STATESBORO, GA (WTOC) -
Georgia's waiver to the No Child Left Behind requirements will help education in the state. That's the belief of one of the people who helps train much of the state's teacher work force. It will free them to teach their subjects and not just prepare students for a standardized test.
Dr. Thomas Koballa, Dean of the College of Education at Georgia Southern University, believes NCLB's inflexible requirements put too much emphasis on the standardized tests. The federal program began under the Bush administration to improve lagging schools by requiring a series of rising proficiency scores according to subjects and according to student subgroups. By 2014, those requirements will rise to 100 percent.
"When you get to 100 percent, or close to that, schools will have a hard time achieving that, particularly when we're talking about all learners in a school whether its students with special needs or those learning proficiencies in English and there may be no way for them to become proficient at the level of expectation," Dr. Koballa stated.
He said the waiver for Georgia and nine other states does not mean they go free from any accountability. Georgia will adopt the College and Career Readiness Performance Index, he stated. According to Koballa, the CCRPI will take more factors into account. It will look at a school's graduation rate, retention rates and other measurements beyond just test scores.
"It's not just focused on a student's performance on a single test given on a single day but it looks at a broader array of indicators which I think should be comforting to citizens of Georgia as well as parents as well as folks in schools," he added.
Georgia Southern's College of Education produces the largest number of teachers in the state of Georgia's colleges and universities.
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