Local school officials see national educational reform efforts as a good sign, but are still waiting for real reform to take place.

Nearly everyone agrees the fix needs fixing. The No Child Left Behind law that was supposed to improve American education has left schools grumbling at being labeled “failures,” state officials fuming and complaints everywhere about required testing.

But President Barack Obama’s response on Friday — he’s allowing states to opt out — is starting a new round of heated arguments.

There are questions about whether letting states bypass unpopular proficiency standards will help the nation’s schoolchildren. And, even as states clamor to use the new waiver option, some lawmakers say Obama is inserting politics in what had been a bipartisan approach to education.

Local educators say any push on reform is welcome for a law many agree doesn’t fully tackle educational accountability.

“It’s obviously a big step,” said John Alberts, educational services director at Austin Public Schools. “It’s a nice step in terms of reform.”

Alberts doesn’t see the law changing any time soon, as legislators have yet to reauthorize the bill for several years and the Obama administration’s Race To The Top program continues to grow.

At the same time, Alberts takes the recent talk as a welcome sign in a long wait for reform. Even if it doesn’t happen soon, it’s good lawmakers are recognizing the need for change.

“It’s a very realistic approach,” Alberts said. “It’s also recognizing the fact that something needs to be done here.”

Rural educators agree. Lyle Superintendent Jim Dusso believes changes need to be made to make NCLB requirements less stringent and more about accountability. Lyle has run afoul of participation rules after the district was five students shy of meeting the minimum student attendance required to take the test in 2009, meaning the district had to have a corrective action plan. Lyle officials couldn’t make a plan based on attendance, and so focused on other areas where they could raise scores.

“If anything, what it reforms is taking the pressure off of the process,” Dusso said.

At the White House, the president said he was acting only because Congress wouldn’t. He decried the state of U.S. education and called the “No Child” law — a signature legacy of President George W. Bush’s presidency — an admirable but flawed effort that ended up hurting students instead of helping them.

Obama’s announcement could fundamentally affect the education of tens of millions of children. It will allow states to scrap a key requirement that all children show they are proficient in reading and math by 2014 — if those states meet conditions such as imposing their own standards to prepare students for college and careers and setting evaluation standards for teachers and principals.

Kids will still have to take yearly tests in math and reading, although the administration says the emphasis will be more on measuring growth over time.

The impact on school kids could vary greatly depending on how states choose to reward or punish individual schools. Under No Child Left Behind, children who attend schools deemed failures after a set period of time are eligible for extra tutoring and school choice. Under the president’s plan, it’s up to states granted waivers to decide if they will use those same remedies.

A majority of states are expected to apply for waivers, which would be given Minnesota will resubmit its bid to get out of some federal No Child Left Behind requirements after President Barack Obama outlined a plan Friday to grant states waivers from the Bush-era education policy.

State Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius told reporters on a conference call with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan that the state will “tweak” a waiver application it originally submitted in August. Cassellius joined Obama and Duncan for Obama’s announcement in Washington.

The state has been seeking freedom from some testing requirements and sanctions tied to the federal law.

Cassellius says Minnesota has pursued policy changes that fit with Obama’s priorities, including new ways to evaluate teachers and principals.

State officials have long complained that if they had more flexibility, they could implement positive changes. Now, they will have to step up and prove it.

“This is really going to change things because it really does put responsibility squarely on the states,” said Amy Wilkins, a vice president at Education Trust, a nonprofit that seeks to raise achievement standards in schools.

Officials from Kentucky, Idaho, Wisconsin and Colorado were among those expressing support for the president’s plan on Friday.

“I look forward to the federal government narrowing its role in education and allowing Tennessee the flexibility to abide by its own rigorous standards,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, said at the White House event.

But Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who chairs the House Education Committee, wrote in an editorial Friday published in The Washington Examiner that the plan “could mean less transparency, new federal regulations and greater uncertainty for students, teachers, and state and local officials.”

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the ranking member on the Senate committee that oversees education, said the president’s action “clearly politicizes education policy, which traditionally has been a bipartisan issue that attracts support from both parties.”

The law was approved with strong bipartisan support nearly a decade ago. But its popularity sank as disputes over money divided Congress, schools complained they were being labeled “failures” and questions arose over the testing and teacher-quality provisions.

“Higher standards are the right goal. Accountability is the right goal. Closing the achievement gap is the right goal. And we’ve got to stay focused on those goals,” Obama said. “But experience has taught us that in its implementation, No Child Left Behind had some serious flaws that are hurting our children instead of helping them.”

Critics say the law placed too much emphasis on standardized tests, raising the stakes so high for school districts that it may have driven some school officials to cheat.

Duncan warned in March that 82 percent of schools next year could fail to reach proficiency requirements and thus be labeled failures, although some experts questioned the figure.

The law has been due for a rewrite since 2007. Obama and Duncan had asked Congress to overhaul it by the start of this school year but a growing ideological divide in Congress has complicated efforts to do so.

The GOP-led House Education Committee has forwarded three bills that would revamp aspects of the law but has yet to fully tackle some of the more contentious issues such as teacher effectiveness and accountability

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.