The lifeline is about to be cut.
Under the No Child Left Behind law, Hamilton County students, like students around the country, have the option to transfer out of failing public schools and go to better ones outside their regular attendance zones.
But not for much longer.
Acting on Tennessee’s new federal waiver from No Child, Superintendent Rick Smith proposes that the school board end the transfers starting as early as the coming academic year. Mercifully, students already at a transfer school would get to complete whatever years of education that school covers before being forced to return to their zone. But new transfers would mostly stop.
And that stinks.