The Obama administration is looking to bypass Congress’ decision of overriding the nation’s main public-education law. Waivers will be granted to the states that agree with his schools agenda. If states don’t agree with the No Child Left Behind law’s 2014 deadline, which requires that students achieve 100 percent proficiency on all of their required testing, they can avoid it by signing off on certain reforms, which are currently unspecified. It is said that waivers will be offered to schools as early as this school year – Congress has been hesitating to take action and fix the nine year-old law according to White House domestic policy advisers.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan considers the current legislation to be insufficient, encouraging schools to hold dumbed-down standards by only focusing on testing proficiency. If the law isn’t changed soon, it is estimated that about 80 percent of U.S. schools are at risk of being labeled as failing. The House education committee chairman, John Kline, says that his committee is working on various bills to change the law. The promotions of charter schools, privately run public schools, and the cutting of half of the federal education programs currently under the law, are some of the changes being sought. The No Child Left Behind law is former president George W. Bush’s signature education initiative, it requires schools to show that all of their students are proficient on state standardized reading and math tests, as well as yearly progress by the year 2004.