School Information System
Newsletter Sign Up |

Subscribe to this site via RSS: | Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

April 15, 2009

Education Standards Likely to See Toughening

Sam Dillon:

President Obama and his team have alternated praise for the goals of President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law with criticism of its weaknesses, all the while keeping their own plans for the law a bit of a mystery.

But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. The law's testing requirements may evolve but will certainly not disappear. And the federal role in education policy, once a state and local matter, is likely to grow.

The administration appears to be preparing important fixes to what many see as some of the law's most serious defects. But its emerging plans are a disappointment to some critics of the No Child Left Behind law, who hoped Mr. Obama's campaign promises of change would mean a sharper break with the Bush-era law.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 15, 2009 3:11 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas