So I’m here to say that we can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will. In recent weeks, we decided to stop waiting for Congress to fix No Child Left Behind, and decided to give states the flexibility they need to help our children meet higher standards.

President Obama on the U.S. DOE’s offer of waivers to states that agree to implement measures to turn around failing schools and apply data- based metrics to student and teacher evaluations. (Politico44)