Saying goodbye to the federal No Child Left Behind standards, Alaska education officials are using a waiver to implement their new plan to districts across the state.
It's a change educators say will reach more of Alaska's children.
For years, Alaska educators have been calling No Child Left Behind requirements unfair and say they are virtually impossible to meet, which is why they are looking forward to the new approach.
When it comes to helping students make the grade in their educational journey, educators say it all depends on the options they have available.
"We want them to be able to make choices so that whatever direction they choose to take, they have the background necessary to give them a successful opportunity," said Dr. Scott Butterfield, who is the superintendent for the Chatham School District in southwest Alaska. "If they don't do well in school, then choices are limited and they just have to take what they get."
But here in Alaska over the past ten years, most educators say they have had to focus large amounts of time on specific students who were having trouble to the detriment of the entire system.
Strict standards that they say in rural Alaska has been a real challenge.
"Our district is very small but our different sites are uniquely separate from each other and the challenges to meet those older NCLB requirements became almost impossible," said Butterfield. "The notion that every single kid in America regardless of their learning abilities would meet the standards was absurd in my viewpoint."
"It simply was not doing what it was intended to do," said Vernon Campbell, who is the executive director for ASD ESEA Federal Programs.
It was an all or nothing approach to generate improvement that the State of Alaska is allowed to change after being approved for a federal waiver in May.
Educators will be able to adapt their curriculum to children's specific needs and challenges.
Under the new system, Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP will disappear and be replaced a weighted performance index system. Five will be the rating for the reward schools and one will be the rating for the lowest performing schools in the state. The focus will be on factors like attendance and proficiency while also creating a more realistic set of targets for districts and their students.
Schools will come up with individual plans.
"With a ratings system we can actually begin to see which schools are at various levels because are all over the map in terms of their performance and then begin to target our supports and services and districts can do the same," said Les Morse, who is the deputy commissioner for the State of Alaska Education & Early Development Department.
The new system will also include new standards for math and language arts. Districts are developing their own versions of the plan specific to their schools needs.
"One of the nicest changes is that schools will get credit for the growth, that student growth, academic growth so that's good news," said Campbell.
The new ratings are expected to start statewide around August 15th.
Contact Corey Allen-Young