No Child Left Behind: Congress Considers Revisions to Education Reform Law
Never let it be said they didn't take their time. Lawmakers this week wrapped up three months of deliberations about how to rewrite No Child Left Behind, the 2002 standards-based education reform law. It marked the end of a wonk-filled journey that has revealed very little about what congressional leadership hopes to include in a bill, much less when they plan to write one. Many complain that No Child Left Behind puts so much emphasis on boosting standardized test scores that states dumb down expectations to manufacture improvement. If schools don't show enough gains, they risk closure or a ...
Arne Duncan's Reforms: Rep. Judy Chu Wants Them Left Behind
Teachers unions have long had a friend in Democrats, and they've got a new one in Rep. Judy Chu of California. Chu called Thursday for lawmakers to ditch a model -- championed by another Democrat, Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- for fixing the country's worst performing schools, a combination of multimillion-dollar grants and federally prescribed reform models that call for school closures and staff firings. Flanked by leaders from the two national teachers unions, Chu said individual districts should decide for themselves how to fix failing schools. That's been a demand of teachers for ...
'College and Career Ready'? Education Reformers Need That Defined
Education reformers have made "career and college ready" the latest buzzwords in an overhaul of the U.S. education system. The only problem: They've yet to agree on exactly what the phrase means, a fact on display this past week at a Senate hearing on student assessment. "I think the theory is firm," Mary Ann Blankenship, executive director of the Kentucky Education Association (a state teachers union), told the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee . "I think the specifics are going to get much more specific once the standards are set." ...
Preschool Progress Hurt by Recession, Rutgers Study Shows
The recession has slowed years of progress in America's preschools, and advancements are likely to stall entirely or decline as states come to terms with gutted tax rolls, according to a study released this week. Although most states still boosted public pre-K enrollment during the 2008-09 school year, the period of the survey, growth slowed in quality, access and public funding, according to The State of Preschool 2009, an annual report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. On their face, the statistics don't look that bad. Of the 38 states offering ...
Commencement Challenge: Arne Duncan's Next Education Reform Competition
WASHINGTON – If Barack Obama was your high school graduation speaker, would you have been a better student? Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appears to hope the answer is "yes" with his department's new Race to the Top Commencement Challenge – a nationwide sweepstakes to hear the commander in chief at your local high school. Online voting opened Monday for the six finalists, which submitted essays and videos explaining their credentials. Obama will then pick the winner from the top three finishers sometime next week, a choice based on which school he thinks has made the best ...
'Race to the Top' School Funding Has States Rethinking Education Reform
WASHINGTON -- When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan picked only two states as winners in the first round of a national competition for education money, he meant to spur unsuccessful states into action. Demonstrate the bar is high, he said, and people will try to reach it. Two weeks later, as some of the finalists prepare their second attempts for Race to the Top money, it's unclear if that's the case. Several of the finalists publicly declared that they might not reapply, and others plan to resubmit slightly tweaked or even pared down versions of their original applications. "I have not ...
POPULAR
- Nancy Pelosi Confirms House May Skip Up or Down Vote on Senate Health Bill
- Debrahlee Lorenzana: A Double Take on Those Double D's
- Campbell Brown Quits CNN With Shockingly Frank Farewell
- Palin Earnings Estimated at $12 Million
- The Five Most Racist Obama Cartoons?
- Jimmy Carter Leaves Church Over Treatment of Women
- Soraya M., Stoned to Death for Being an "Inconvenient Wife''
Follow Politics Daily
News From Our Partners
- Dragon arrives at space station in historic 1st
- Picking new leader, Egyptians search for superman
- Egyptians vote in first free presidential vote
- Moon chips from Vegas casino mogul sent to NASA
- Egyptians vote to rid nation of autocratic rule
- More Stories »
- 'Masters of the Universe' Sure Have Fragile Egos
- Romney: My Mistakes 'Haunt Me'
- Newt Lauds Romney: He's Like Eisenhower
- Irked Senate Panel Votes 30-0 to Cut Pakistan Aid
- GSA Bash Organizer Steps Down
- More Stories »
- Know Your Enemy
- Obama’s Challenge in Egypt
- The Edwards Waiting Game
- Are Doctors Doing Too Much?
- The Pagan Cult of Reagan
- More Stories »
- Ambition Counteracting Ambition
- Robert Blagojevich Speaks Out
- In Iowa, Obama Calls Romney's Words 'A Cow Pie of Distortion'
- In Iowa, Obama Calls On Congress to Act on Clean Energy Tax Credits
- Romney Has Interesting Morning in Inner-City Philly
- More Stories »
Top News
More News
More on Aol
Local News
More Blog/Sites
Sites and Services
HuffPost Politics