WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight of California’s largest school districts can ignore parts of the No Child Left Behind education law, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday in announcing the first district-by-district waivers he had long tried to avoid.

More than 1 million students were covered under the California decision, which includes schools in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In exchange for permission to ignore requirements that all children perform at grade level in math and reading, the districts promised school improvement plans that include adopting Common Core standards this fall and testing students on those academic benchmarks starting the following school year.