President Obama today officially announced new changes to the national No Child Left Behind education law that will allow states to bypass a critical requirement that threatened to deny them federal funding down the road.
In a roughly 15-minute speech at the White House, Obama explained that due to congressional inaction, he decided to act unilaterally.
“I’ve urged Congress for awhile now — let’s get a bipartisan effort and let’s fix this. Congress hasn’t been able to do it. So, I will.”
The most significant of the NCLB reforms unveiled by the president involves granting waivers to lieberate states from a requirement that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. That mandate was tied heavily to federal funding, and allowing it to take effect would have put nearly every state in financial jeopardy.
However, in exchange for providing states with “flexibility” to dodge that requirement, states must show that they are implementing high educational standards of their own.
“This does not mean that states will be able to lower their standards or escape accountability,” Obama said. “If states want more flexibility, they’re gonna have to set higher standards, more honest standards.”
Already, 44 states and the District of Columbia “have adopted a common set of State- developed college- and career-ready standards,” according to the White House.
(Click here to read the White House’s summary of the reforms to NCLB).
In addition to transforming classroom standards for students, states must also remodel their methods of evaluating teachers and principals in order to qualify for relief from the law.
“We can’t afford to wait for an education system that is not doing everything it needs to do for our kids,” Obama said. “We can’t let another generation of young people fall behind.”