Request to Amend Accountability Plan – Alabama – NCLB Policy Letters to States

August 16, 2005

Joseph B. Morton
Superintendent of Education
Alabama Department of Education
Gordon Pearsons Building
P.O. Box 302101
Montgomery, AL 36130-2101

Dear Superintendent Morton:

I am writing in response to your May 31, 2005 letter in which you express interest in the interim flexibility announced by the Secretary in April 2005 regarding calculating adequate yearly progress (AYP) for the students with disabilities subgroup. Your request for this flexibility would not affect accountability determinations until Alabama’s spring 2006 test administration, resulting in an adjustment to the 2006-07 school year AYP determinations.

We are pleased that you are interested in this flexibility; however, we do not yet know what flexibility will be offered next year. The Secretary expressed her willingness to provide States this interim flexibility for the 2004-05 school year while the U.S. Department of Education promulgates a regulation to permit States to develop modified achievement standards and aligned assessments for certain students with disabilities. As we move forward developing this regulation, we will know better what flexibility, if any, would be beneficial for 2005-06.

Again, thank you for expressing interest in this interim flexibility. We look forward to working with you further as the department establishes a regulation regarding the development of modified achievement standards and aligned assessments for students with disabilities and any further associated flexibility. If I can be of any additional assistance to Alabama in its efforts to implement other aspects of NCLB, please do not hesitate to call.

Sincerely,

Henry L. Johnson
cc: Governor Bob Riley

Decision Letters on State Accountability Plans