Dive Summary:

• With the denial of its request for a waiver from No Child Left Behind, California will be forced to continue striving to achieve the 10-years-old, George W. Bush-era law's goals--which have been generally accepted as unachievable--and be punished for failing to meet them.
• California was hoping to join the other 33 states that, along with the District of Columbia, have been given a reprieve, but its refusal to evaluate teachers based on students' standardized test performance was a sticking point on the state's application.
• California Board of Education President Mike Kirst said he anticipated the rejection, but blames Congress for failing to revise the law, which requires, among other things, that all students (including the learning disabled, poor and English learners) test proficient in English and math by 2014 and allows for punishment potentially as severe as firing a school's entire leadership and staff.
   

From the article:

Signaling that California again is marching to its own drum — perhaps trailing the parade — the federal government has denied the state’s request for a waiver from a key U.S. education law, thus assuring that schools will have to keep striving to meet what’s generally accepted as unachievable goals, then be punished for missing them. Like other states, California had been hoping to win a reprieve from the restrictive provisions of the No Child Left Behind law. Among other terms, the law punishes schools and districts if not enough of their students reach proficiency in English and math. ...