May 28, 2003
The Honorable Michael E. Ward
State Superintendent
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
6301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-6301
Dear Dr. Ward:
The Department has reviewed your plan to invoke your authority as an Education Flexibility Partnership Act (Ed-Flex) State to issue waivers to LEAs on a case-by-case basis, for the 2003-2004 school year, of section 1119(a)(1) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110). We know that you are striving to ensure higher achievement for all students and understand that special efforts are needed to attain that goal for students in Title I schools. For these reasons we know that you do not invoke this authority lightly since, without highly qualified teachers, these students will continue to be left behind.
Under Ed-Flex, a State may consider requests from its LEAs to waive statutory and regulatory requirements that impede implementation of State and local improvement plans or that unnecessarily burden program administration, while maintaining the intent and purposes of affected programs. (As you know, Ed-Flex States must meet the accountability requirements of Title I to maintain their Ed-Flex authority.)
North Carolina's intention to waive, until the end of school year 2003-2004, the requirement that all teachers newly hired by an LEA to teach core academic subjects in a Title I program be highly qualified is permissible provided that:
I look forward to working with you to ensure that all of our children receive a high-quality education.
Sincerely,
Eugene W. Hickok
Under Secretary
Last Modified: 03/10/2004
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