President Obama announced on Friday that states will be granted waivers from certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in exchange for adherence to Administration-preferred education policies, including ones that move toward a federally-approved curriculum. Waivers are permitted under NCLB.  Waivers with strings -- in the form of federal government stipulations -- are not authorized, according to at least one U.S. Senator and others. NCLB expanded the federal government's role in public education. The NCLB Act was signed into law by President Bush in 2001 and was co-authored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, Rep. John Boehner, and others. In a study conducted in 2007 regarding the effectiveness of NCLB, Cato Institute found that NCLB was ineffective and otherwise flawed, a view that is now widely held.  Cato concluded that NCLB "oversteps the federal government's constitutional limits -- treading on a responsibility that, by law and tradition, is reserved to the...(Read Full Post)