logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

President Grants No Child Left Behind Waivers

Louis Altman
February 10, 2012
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

February 9, 2012; Source: Associated Press | On Thursday, by executive order, President Obama granted ten states waivers to the stringent central provisions of the much-maligned No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee will no longer be held to the Bush-era law’s onerous 2014 deadline for bringing all grade school students within each state to grade level proficiency in reading and math, a lofty standard many critics condemned as unrealistic and ill-conceived. All states excused from compliance are bound by promises to set higher universal standards of achievement, develop more long-term schemes for college and career planning, reward the success of the best-performing schools and focus more attention on their weakest brethren.

An additional 28 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, are planning waiver requests of their own. Three key states—California, Texas and Pennsylvania—do not plan to flee the “teaching to the test” pathology NCLB has engendered are not currently seeking flexibility to formulate home-grown curricula. The Obama administration has set no timeline for applications, but clearly plans to enforce his predecessor’s creation among those states without a waiver: “it’s the law of the land,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated on Tuesday.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Congress passed no Child Left Behind a decade ago with bipartisan support. The legislative intent was to rescue the nation’s disadvantaged children from the cycle of poverty set in motion by unequal educational opportunities. This has not come to pass. Rather, last year, nearly half of the nation’s schools failed to meet benchmarks set by the law. Strict penalties befall those that fall behind for two years or longer, including the busing of students to better-performing schools and the replacement of staff.

President Obama’s sweeping clemency is attracting divided, partisan views. Some conservatives opine that Obama is usurping Congress’ authority with his own vision. Others say President Obama is at least seeking local flexibility for deploying federal funds with a plan for more realistic educational objectives. “We’ve offered every state the same deal,” Obama said. “If you’re willing to set higher, more honest standards than the one ones that were set by No Child Left Behind, then we’re going to give you the flexibility to meet those standards.” –Louis Altman

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Louis Altman

Louis Altman is a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor with the Syracuse, New York office of ACCES-VR, a state agency that works with people with disabilities to help them achieve vocational goals and other related objectives. A licensed attorney in New York for over twenty years, Louis is also an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, teaching Legal & Ethical Issues in Counseling for the University's masters program in Rehabilitation Counseling, a program he graduated from. Louis has been writing newswires for NPQ since 2012. He has a wide variety of interests in the arts, business and sociology, and whatever unique and influential developments NPQ readers might find valuable to know. To leverage his training and experience he is working with NPQ to develop a focus on legal and vocational issues relevant to the nonprofit community.

More about: EducationNonprofit NewsPolicyWhite House / Executive Branch

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Finding Power in Community: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers’ Union
Sheri Davis
How Environmental Education Is Moving into High Schools
Ayana Albertini-Fleurant, Dr. Janelle M. Burke, Kari Fulton, Joe Hurst and Ariel Murphy Bedford
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
Why Access to Education Is Key to Dismantling Mass Incarceration
Syrita Steib

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Finding Power in Community: Lessons from the Chicago...
Sheri Davis
How Environmental Education Is Moving into High Schools
Ayana Albertini-Fleurant, Dr. Janelle M. Burke, Kari Fulton, Joe Hurst and Ariel Murphy Bedford
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.