States given school waivers

Tennessee and Georgia are free from the federal No Child Left Behind law, allowing them to scrap some of the most rigorous and unpopular mandates in American education.

In exchange, they must promise higher standards and more creative ways to measure what students are learning.

President Barack Obama announced Thursday that 10 states are receiving waivers from the rules of No Child Left Behind.

It means Tennessee and Georgia schools are no longer held to a requirement that all students perform at grade level in math and reading by 2014, a goal that critics of the law said was unrealistic and led to teachers

That gives them the right to appeal if the decision goes against them.

“There is no other party acting on the benefit of those citizens,” Wysong said.

LAST MINUTE DRAMA

Late Thursday, North said he and city officials found that Clem, who served in the state legislature for six years, was involved in a vote ratifying the state’s recall statute in 2005 — the same statute he’s now contesting.

North said the vote was 93-0 with seven abstentions. The records don’t say whether Clem voted for the statute or abstained, but they clearly show he did not vote against it, North said.

“What stands out to me is the hypocrisy,” North said.

Clem said he had voted on more than 6,000 bills while in office and couldn’t remember every one.

“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything,” he said. “I’m a lawyer, I do what my client says.”

Beeland also attacked Clem, saying the attorney attacking a statute he never voted against struck the