"We don't like your stinkin' law!"
"Oh, OK, never mind."
Indiana is one of 10 states seeking and receiving a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act. Even more states are set to request the waivers:
The waivers allow states to escape from some of the central provisions and sanctions associated with the decade-old federal law, policies that critics have branded onerous and unrealistic. In exchange, states have agreed to set new academic targets and establish new strategies for evaluating educators and turning around struggling schools, among other expectations.
Provisions and sancttions that are "onerous and unrealistic" should be gotten rid of, not put on the back shelf so we can pretend they're not there. It's like keeping an unenforced jaywalking ordinance on the books so it can be dusted off if there's someone the cops want to hassle. And the state isn't really escaping anything here -- it's merely trading one set of mandates for another one.
Toss No Child Left Behind in the discard pile, and throw Race to the Top in after it. Education is properly a state and local issue.
