The 10 States to recieve No Child left behind waivers "Obama" Sed

Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma need action by their state legislatures or boards of education, Duncan said, or their waivers will be revoked.

An additional 28 states, including Virginia and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia, have indicated that they intend to apply this month for a second round of waivers.

After states applied for waivers, their plans were read by peer reviewers, and the administration suggested changes.

“There’s a huge gap between what the states asked for and what they ended up with,” said Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank. “The states asked for a mile, and the administration is giving them an inch.”

But some said the administration might be giving too much leeway. Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust, an advocacy group that seeks to close the achievement gap, said she is concerned that plans submitted by Indiana and Oklahoma don’t do enough to hold schools accountable for educating Latino, African American and other minority children.

When Congress passed No Child Left Behind in 2001, it was a bipartisan effort to hold schools accountable to parents and taxpayers and a federal commitment to attack student achievement gaps.

For the first time, the law required schools to test all children annually in grades 3 through 8 and at least once in high school and report results by subgroups — including race, English learners and students with disabilities — so it was clear how every student was faring.

But administrators and teachers complained that the law unfairly labeled schools as “failures” if just one subgroup failed to meet annual goals and that it focused too much attention a single high-stakes test as opposed to student academic growth over the school year.

According to the Center on Education Policy, 48 percent of the nation’s schools were “failures” last year under No Child Left Behind.

States that receive waivers will still test students annually, but in September, their schools will no longer face the punitive measures outlined in No Child Left Behind, such as firing half a school’s staff members, removing the principal or even shutting down a school altogether.