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ALBANY, GA --
On Thursday, the State of Georgia received a waiver for the No Child Left Behind law.

The purpose of the waiver is to eliminate the 2014 requirement that students have to achieve at a certain grade level in math and reading.

“Every school system won’t be able to graduate students at one hundred percent. So, it’s important sometimes because one size doesn’t fit all in education and it just takes different levels, so I want other states to come on board,” said Dougherty County School System Superintendent Dr. Joshua Murfree.

Dougherty County School System officials said that this will give schools across the state more flexibility.

“Most educators in our system that I know, have no problem with accountability. They want to see the students succeed and see them go to the next level in education,” said R.D. Harter, Public Information Director for the Dougherty County School System.

Now the state will move forward with Five-Star-Systems that won’t be based on just math and science or standardized pass or fail. It will look at other subjects to determine the performance of the school for standardized testing. Next year Georgia will start using a College and Career Ready Performance Index.

Georgia’s is receiving the waiver conditionally by the U.S. Department of Education.  This means some changes are possible down the road to the waiver and it is expected to go into effect within this year.

Dr. Murfree adds that so some school systems were pressured because there was pay for performance. We have to do what’s right and at the end of the day the focus should all be on children.