Obama lets states opt out of No Child Left Behind

UPDATED 12:15 p.m ET

President Obama unveiled the most significant changes to U.S. education policy in a decade, using his executive authority to give states more flexibility to opt out of some provisions of the controversial No Child Left Behind program that was a signature initiative of President George W. Bush.

"We can't let another generation of young people fall behind," Mr. Obama told an audience of education leaders in the East Room of the White House.

Mr. Obama expressed frustration with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who have bickered about the best way to improve the increasingly unpopular program championed 10 years ago by Bush and liberal Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy. Mr. Bush signed the law in early 2002 at an Ohio high school in the congressional district of House Speaker John Boehner, who was then chairman of the House panel overseeing responsible for education.

"Our kids only get one shot at a decent education. They cannot afford to wait any longer. So, given that Congress cannot act, I am acting," Mr. Obama said.

The president tied the need to improve U.S. education to his efforts to jumpstart the struggling economy.

"We are in the midst of an enormous economic challenge," Mr. Obama said,"the most important thing we can do is make sure that our kids are prepared for this new economy."

Mr. Obama noted that the United States is ranked 16th in world for the percentage of young people who earn a college degree.

"Today, our kids trail too many other countries in math, in science, in reading. And that's true, by the way, not just in inner-city schools, not just among poor kids; even among what are considered our better-off suburban schools we're lagging behind where we need to be," the president said.

Most states are expected to apply for the waiver, which would give them more control over how they deal with troubled schools.

Mr. Obama emphasized that the waiver would not lower standards, but would in fact raise them because to get the waiver the standards would have to be raised. And he said the current law perversely encourages schools to lower their standards so they do not miss their mandated goals.

"These problems have been obvious to parents and educators all over the country for years now," Mr. Obama said.

[projectobject411]

Although I voted for obama the first time, I am not sure I should do it again. What is the sense of having him in office just to have the republicans knock down everything he tries to do? GOP's agendas, getting something done in D.C. would be nice for a change. I would also vote for ron paul but he needs more media attention and most of the people/voters in this country vote for candidates that have pizazz....or ones that only cheat a little

[mscapecod]

How can the GOP "cripple" our country when HE , along with his cahorts has already crippled us both here at home and all over the entire world !!!
He hsa destroyed everything good that we had..this is another example albeit a small one...

[noloyalisti]

No child left behind was just one of the scams of the Bushoccio Crime Family to grow government to benefit his big corporate masters.

Bushoccio was like a dumb child playing with government like a toy. Him and his privatization freaks could not have cared less if public education improved. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. Typical short sighted Republicons.

[c3373]

NCLB accomplished at least one thing. What I found interesting was that 20% of schools are getting failing grades and President Obama saying "nearly a quarter of our students don't finish high school". NCLB seems to have identified problems. I say let parents choose when to send thier children. Magnet, charter, or private.

[CincinnatiRIck]

Now let Obama do something really useful: allow the states to opt out of Obamacare.

[LianaNadine]

This doesn't exactly say what this means for schools... I was in school when the NCLB started, and it was miserable. I was always in all the top classes, the fastest moving classes, and then when they started this they started integrating all the kids together. They said they were doing it so that kids wouldn't have the stigma of being in the slower classes, but all it did was slow us down, and dumb everything down. The students who worked hard and had a high capacity for learning were then grouped with kids who either didn't do their work or needed things to be gone over more slowly, and what happened was we ended up learning less and not reaching our full potential, because the teachers had to go as slow as the slowest kid in the class. So does this mean they will start separating the classes again, by how quickly or easily children learn? I think this is the way the education system should be; there will always be kids who pick things up very quickly, or work really hard to stay in the top classes, and there will always be kids who need a slower paced learning environment, or who don't put any effort into their schoolwork. To put these two different types of kids together in one classroom, to avoid stigma, is wrong and it's not doing what's best for the kids. If your a child who needs more time to grasp your lessons, then you should be in a classroom with like children where the teacher can go slowly and explain everything more thoroughly. But if you are a kid who can pick things up quickly, you shouldn't be held back, sitting in a classroom bored because the teacher is moving too slowly to keep you engaged. Most high schools require that you take 3 maths, 3 sciences, 4 English, history, etc., to get your high school diploma. You can graduate whether you take algebra 1, 2, and geometry as your math courses or whether you took algebra 2, trigonometry, and calculus. Children learn at different rates and have different comprehension levels, and they should be classed accordingly. I hope this puts an end to what I went through in high school, we need to stop holding all the kids back to the pace of the slowest learning one, everyone has different strengths and that's what should be highlighted in school. There will always be some kids who are better at some things than others, and those others will be better at other things. We need to stop mandating that all our kids graduate at the same exact level, because the kids who are held back by this are not reaching their full potential, and the kids who this is supposed to be benefitting aren't learning what it is about themselves that's really great, what their personal strengths are. I say good riddance, No Child Left Behind.

[c3373]

I don't know if this is a symptom of NCLB. It sounds like idealogy of esteem above all else. There are money issues as well that contribute to this problem. In FL there are mandatory maximum class sizes. The sales pitch was to provide better eduction through greater teacher-student interaction. But as you point out this could result in an AP class at maximum but not enough for second one. Oh well, you will have to move down a notch. Government, people actually, however well intentioned put mandates in place that don't fit all cases. Let the local school boards and parents decide what's best for their own children.

[jschmidt27]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/story/2011-09-20/buffett-tax-millionaires/50480226/1 The 10% of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70% of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. But that's less than 1% of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average 29.1% of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15% of their income in federal taxes.

Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5% of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7%.

[c3373]

We need to separate the topics of wealth distrubution from tax revenue. We are stuck going after "them", whoever they are. If we don't talk about wealth redistribution as a separate topic we will continue to demonize "them" while heading into socialism. First pay taxes uniformly across all citizens. Maybe some form of consumption tax in addition to payroll tax. Then, talk about distribution. There may be better ways to accomplish this goal. We currently give tax deductions for charitable deductions which is a form of wealth redistribution and many of these organizations have proven to be more efficient than the federal government.

[andrewjsacks]

It is about time.

OBAMA 2012!

[wfw3536]

Obama is at it again, just disregard the law and do whatever you want. Oh, and then blame congress for breaking the law. You know the real reason Obama did this is it help pay off the teachers who would have achieve 100% proficiency of all students by 2014. Now it will be left up to states and Dept of Education who are going to lower standards so their state do not look bad. You think any state will have poor graduation rates if they can control it by lowering their standards, when this information is looked at by parents and companies when deciding where to locate. How sad Obama, who says he is for a world class education of our children and then he caves into to teacher unions.

[slappy-mcjohnson]

Obama is at it again, just disregard the law

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You realize that's how Bush got his tax cuts through, don't you? Are you new to executive orders, which are legal?

[retm-w]

How is this caving into the teachers union?

[margroks]

But the NCLB program which was promoted by a school principal was discovered to me a fraud. Schools do need oversight but it needs to be reasonable and NCLB wasn't that program by all accounts.