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President Obama promises that reforms in the NCLB will fix some major flaws and many state and local education officials welcome this move.

There is a strong hope among educators that changes initiated by the Obama administration will now make waiver a reality for states. They also hope that this will enable Massachusetts to overrule federal government accountability measures and emphasize on its own measures.

Existing national evaluation model has lofty achievement targets that have been forced upon high performing schools. The aim here is to downplay this model and bring in more flexibility.

According to Edward Fleury, Superintendent of Bellingham, our President is right in saying that the system is broken. He said that the need of the hour is to create assessment models that are fair and geared towards progress.

The major measurement tool of the No Child Left Behind program is adequate yearly progress. Though Massachusetts has a very good public education system, the state has been missing the mark every year.

In Massachusetts, adequate yearly progress is assessed based on Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. At least 90% of the schools, the past year failed to meet the set target.

Failure in this MetroWest region is definitely due to annual academic progress’s ambitious standards rather than any failure in student learning. This unrealistic standard is the reason why even the high performing schools fail.

According to Fleury, meeting AYP is more challenging for schools that are doing better. While announcing the changes made to the 2001 NCLB Act, President Obama says that some schools were in a predicament and were lowering standards to avoid failure. Missing their mark means facing serious consequences for districts.

For instance, schools that are unable to meet the AYP for a couple of years in a row have to allow students School Choice programs. This means they have to either be provided with tutoring services or have to be allowed to attend schools elsewhere.

Some experts feel that NCLB laid a lot of emphasis on reading and math proficiency which in itself led to many side effects including lesser or no focus on other important areas. They feel that except math and English language, schools were unable to focus on other critical subjects.

Massachusetts, backed by the federal waiver, will now be able to expand its MCAS primary testing model into a powerful tool for evaluation, beyond paper and pencils.  J.C. Considine, spokesman for Elementary and Secondary Education State Department however cautioned that it is too early to describe the accountability model of the state after it gets a waiver.

He said that they are holding meetings everyday to figure it out as the federal and state criteria will be woven together by the new system. Polls were conducted last week among educators to determine the kind of flexibility that will do overall good.

One thing is for sure. Local and state education officials pointed out that standards will definitely not be lowered under the new federal accountability system. Obama has granted freedom with certain bindings. According to our President, more flexibility will mean setting honest and high standards and work diligently towards meeting them.