Dive Brief:

• New Jersey will get one more year of freedom from the restrictions of No Child Left Behind, as federal officials announced the state received an extension on its NCLB waiver.  
• The waiver is one of about two dozen granted in recent months.
• If the state decides to apply for another waiver in the spring of 2015 it will have to create a plan for improving achievement in low-income neighborhoods.  

Dive Insight:

NCLB has been up for reauthorization since 2007, but, since Congress is struggling to decide what modification they should make to the controversial law, it's been in somewhat of a limbo. In the interim, the Department of Education doles out waivers to states with plans that adhere to certain federal recommendations like test-based evaluations.

States without waivers, such as Nebraska and Washington state, are placed into a difficult situation because of the law's high proficiency standards.  Last month Nebraska Education Commissioner Matthew Blomstedt called the No Child Left Behind targets "flawed and misleading," since, without a federal waiver, over half of the state's schools were failing to meet goals established by the law.  In both Nebraska and Washington state, schools with rising or stagnant test scores are being deemed as "failing" or "in need of improvement" for not making NCLB targets.