Feds grant Texas No Child Left Behind waiver

Feds grant Texas No Child Left Behind waiver

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press : September 30, 2013 : Updated: September 30, 2013 6:01pm

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Education Department on Monday excused Texas from the most strenuous requirements of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, granting the state a reprieve from some of the standardized testing-based accountability standards it helped pioneer.

The department said it issued a waiver in exchange for a state plan to prepare students for college and career, focus aid on the neediest students and support effective teaching and leadership.

Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have been issued similar waivers, but none may carry the symbolic importance of Texas' waiver. The law was the signature education initiative of President George W. Bush, who modeled many of the changes it implemented nationwide on the practices of his home state while he was Texas' governor.

No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002 with the goal of making all children proficient in math and reading by 2014. The program's benchmarks have gotten harder to reach each year, and federal education officials suggested that waivers would give states more leeway to improve how they prepare and evaluate students.

Despite being up for renewal since 2007, Congress hasn't addressed the law, prompting the Obama administration to issue waivers.

Read on here.