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There was a time when a strong legislative process was clearly in place. Lately it feels like Congress has been given a break by the Obama administration. They seem to be bereft of any job to do even as our administration has decided not to abide by constitutional limits rather than abide by it. This is very clear in terms of net neutrality, cap and trade, card check, Obamacare and financial regulations.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers is a strong example of this where our President has surpassed himself. Rather than giving states more freedom and flexibility, waivers have only forced them to fall in line with at least forty government mandates. Millions of students as well as all fifty states will be deeply affected by this education policy nationalization.

Making laws is the exclusive responsibility of the Congress and the fact that our President decided to act as given that Congress cannot act is definitely not justifiable. There is no way President can take things into his own hands if the Congress takes too long. Nothing in our constitution says that. Whatever law he wishes to change has to go through the Congress, whether he likes it or not.
We all know that NCLB is not at all perfect.

Our educational system in fact requires a complete overhaul. The right to craft new laws towards this however lies with the Congress whether we like it or not. Our administration has no right to over zealously take things into their own hands and regulate instead of legislate.

According to some, our President, through the waivers, is favoring some of his teacher’s union friends. He has successfully gutted accountability standards. For example, if schools fail to perform well, they will not be required to take any corrective option and be responsible towards students. Billions of dollars have been pumped into schools by taxpayers to help them meet standards since NCLB began.

They must then slash the dollars that went into accountability shepherding if they are planning on axing high standard accountability. This has always been the case. Government spending continues to be on the rise even after phasing out of accountability standards when Republicans agree to this and liberals cede to high standards.

Sadly, even the plans that are designed to help students by leveraging free market has been axed in the waivers plan. What is all this leading to? Our administration is clearly over reaching by circumventing rule of law and constitution. Effective programs have been killed with onerous reforms and rules which in turn stops parent empowerment and free market harnessing.

Isn’t it frustrating that all this is happening exclusively to give his teacher’s union, education establishment and school bureaucracy more power?

Our students today are trapped in failing schools. Where is the waiver for them? These are clearly tactics that are not rooted in law and out of sequence priorities. The trend is indeed disturbing and could be disastrous if something is not done about it now.