A decade after the No Child Left Behind law was passed and ushered in a new standard for schools across the nation, President Obama has freed 10 states from certain restrictions of the law, most notably the deadline for bringing all of their students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014.
The states, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma, were granted release from the law after applying for a waiver program that was announced by President Obama in September. The program was announced because of many states that had adopted standards that interfered with the No Child Left Behind law.
The law, passed in 2002, aimed to standardize each state’s education system. It has, however, been up for renewal since 2007, and with President Obama’s new waiver program, there is a chance that we will not see its renewal anytime soon.
While some officials have praised the waivers, others have been more critical of the program, citing a lack of consistency as being potentially problematic.
“I would think that if we’re holding every single state to such high standards except for a certain group of states, then why should we have the standards at all?” counselor Erin Hayes said.
The law may lose even more power as 28 more states including Missouri and Kansas as well as the District of Colombia and Puerto Rico, are still seeking to apply for the waiver. Federal officials are reportedly working with New Mexico, which has been denied because of its unfinished application.
The law has been criticized by state education officials because of the difficult deadline of 2014, and did not take into account the needs of disadvantaged children. President Obama offered that if the states set higher standards, they would be afforded greater flexibility as to when to achieve the standards.
When speaking about the waivers at the White House during a press conference Obama said, “We’ve got to do it in a way that doesn’t force teachers to teach to the test, or encourage schools to lower their standards to avoid being labeled as failures. We’ve said, ‘If you’re willing to set higher, more honest standards than the ones that were set by No Child Left Behind, then we’re going to give you the flexibility to meet those standards.’”
