The state education department has sent off its formal application to its federal counterpart for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act.

The move comes about a week after Washington state became the first state in the country to lose its waiver. There are two issues on which the state and feds disagree: the weight given to graduation rates in Arizona’s high school rankings and how the state uses the AIMS test in its teacher evaluations.

Karla Phillips is the Director of Cross Divisional Leadership Initiatives for the state Department of Education and she has been working on the waiver.

The U.S. Education Department says it has received Arizona’s waiver, is reviewing it, and hopes to have a decision on it by the end of the current school year.