Tennessee is considering asking the Obama administration to waive some of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law for this state’s schools, Gov. Bill Haslam said Wednesday.
President Obama has asked Congress to reform parts of the law, which can limit funding to schools failing to meet student achievement standards.
According to some estimates, up to 80 percent of the country’s schools soon could be classified as failing if accountability standards aren’t changed. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said he will waive some of the law’s requirements for states that request it. Many states are expected to do so.
“We are in the middle of a lot of discussions about what we should do about that,” Haslam told reporters, adding that he doesn’t think Congress will reform the law soon.
“It seems like to me that Congress is kind of at a stalemate and nothing will get passed. If that happens, we’re going to have an inordinate amount of schools” classified as failing. “Everybody realizes so many schools are going to not meet that criteria [that] something’s going to have to be done. That’s a very real possibility that might happen.”