Obama signs education reform bill into law

US President Barack Obama (C) signs S.1177, the "Every Student Succeeds Act", a bipartisan rewrite of No Child Left Behind, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, December 10, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON -- US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a sweeping rewrite of the nation's education law which changes how teachers and public schools would be evaluated across the country.

The new bipartisan bill, entitled the Every Student Succeeds Act, now replaces No Child Left Behind, a landmark education law of 2002 which critics had been for a decade blasting as being unworkable and overreaching.

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, students will still be required to take statewide reading and math exams, a key feature of No Child Left Behind.

The reform bill, however, would from now on "empower state and local decisionmakers" to improve the local education system based on exam results, rather than imposing "cookie-cutter federal solutions" like No Child Left Behind did, according to a White House report released Thursday.

Since its introduction, No Child Left Behind had been derided as a federal law that attempted to fit in with all situations of the nation's 100,000 or so public schools in terms of teaching assessment.

The new education law also encourages different states to limit the time for students to spend in testing.