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President Obama recently announced the status of the No Child Left Behind Act. A key requirement of the act was scrapped by him paving way for states to use innovative methods to meet their requirements which in turn will help them meet the federal education standards. It is now time to reflect on what this will mean for students.

Very specific testing standards are provided for schools by the current NCLB wording. Schools that do not meet the standards are forced to respond through various restrictions. This includes informing students who have failed that they must definitely meet the standards and for this they can enroll in any other nearby schools that meets the federal standards consistently.

 Many parents were surprised to receive these failure letters for their sons and daughters. All of them were informed that they could switch to any of the listed local schools that were not failing and were up to the stipulated mark.

This was the situation a couple of years back. This year, almost all nearby schools were in warning status or were failing. This trend was interestingly predicted by experts years back. They said that the restrictive methods advocated by the No Child Left Behind program was eventually going to push all schools into the abyss and they will be unable to pull themselves up and prove their mettle.

Now, with his announcement, our President says that there will be no weakening of the standard of education due to his move. He hopes strongly that it will help states assess and achieve higher education standards by developing their own plans. If states are able to meet certain conditions, they can approach the Department of Education and request for a waiver according to Obama’s plan.
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According to our President, the right goal should be to enhance the standards of education at all levels. For this, there must be more accountability. He also said that it is absolutely essential to close the achievement gap. For this, we must all remain focused on these targets and goals, he said.

He went on to say that in doing this, we have realized through experience that rather than do any good, implementation of the No Child Left Behind program has only raised more obstacles. This is because this program has some fundamental flaws that are not really helping our children. On the contrary, students are being hurt to an extent that they are unable to recover and find their footing.

This is one of our President’s moves that were cheered by most educations across the country. In fact, many states have already sat up and started developing plans to take advantage of the waiver. So, what exactly does all this mean for your child?

Well for one, you will have to wait and see if your state is planning on applying for the waiver or not. If they do work out a plan and apply, you will also have to take into account the type of plan developed in the overall interest of students.