Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee put in applications for the waiver by Monday, meeting the first of three deadlines, the Education Department announced.
Each of those states submitted plans to improve
their education system, and will be notified by mid-January if their
proposals have been approved.
The next deadline will be in mid-February and more states can still seek waivers from the education law.
Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton told POLITICO it is unclear how many states will meet the second phase of the application process, given that different states “are in different stages” of the process, with some states more prepared than others to submit their plans at this point in time. “We’re not telling them how to put their plan together, but we’re working with all the states” to aid the application process, Hamilton added.
According to the Education Department, 39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled that they will take advantage of the waiver option.
Any state that is granted the waiver will be able to design “locally-tailored interventions for schools” instead of the “one-size-fits-all remedies” prescribed by the No Child Left Behind law, use multiple measures other than test scores to assess school process and have more flexibility on how to spend its education funding, the Education Department said.
Announcing the administration’s plan to allow states to apply for waivers in September, Obama said that he was taking matters into his own hands because Congress was refusing to take action.
“Starting today, we’ll be giving states more flexibility to meet high standards. We’re going to let states, schools and teachers come up with innovative ways to give our children the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future,” the president said. “This does not mean that states will be able to lower their standards or escape accountability.”
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