George W. Bush's Education Law, No Child Left Behind, Abandoned By Texas:

George W. Bush's Education Law, No Child Left Behind, Abandoned By Texas

Posted: 09/30/2013 5:57 pm EDT

 It's official. Texas is leaving behind George W. Bush's baby -- the No Child Left Behind education law.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Monday that he approved the application of Texas, Bush's home state, for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act. This makes Texas the 42nd state to receive permission to ditch the notorious education law's most onerous strictures.

No Child Left Behind, a signature Bush initiative, was signed into law more than a decade ago. It required standardized testing of students and a system of penalties for schools whose students scored below benchmarks chosen to demonstrate proficiency. At the time, the law was notable for both its bipartisan support -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) both appear in the portrait of the bill's signing -- and for dramatically expanding the federal government's reach into the nation's schools.

No Child Left Behind was primarily based on education reforms that originated in Texas. In the late-1990s, Sandy Kress, a White House official during Jimmy Carter's presidency, became interested in education and proposed an accountability plan designed to shock Dallas's schools out of their stagnation. Kress, a career politicia