No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era law mandating standardized testing as a measure of school success, is not working and needs to be reformed. This was the thrust of a speech by President Barack Obama, who repeated, "We have to fix No Child Left Behind" five times while speaking at a Virginia middle school on Monday.

The president argued that while the goals of NCLB — higher standards, teacher accountability and closing the achievement gap — are good ones, the policy, which imposes sanctions on schools that fall short of its set standards, is too rigid, underfunded and ineffective. He pointed out that, under the current system, 80% of U.S. schools are labeled as failing, including schools that are making remarkable progress. Read the article by Cynthia Gordy at NPR online.

While their students can earn anything from an A to an F for their school performance, nearly every American teacher gets one of two grades — unsatisfactory or meets expectations — and almost all earn a passing grade.

That is about to change in Washington and many other states where more nuanced teacher evaluation systems are being developed, at least partly in response to the federal Race to the Top competition for school dollars. To learn more about the change in teacher evaluations, read the full article by Donna Gordon Blankinship in the News section of The Bellingham Herald online.

President Obama plans to ask Congress today to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law by fall, escalating the urgency of his campaign for an overhaul of public education. Obama's message, to be delivered in a speech at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington County, will set his first public timetable for lawmakers to revise a nine-year-old law that in recent years has lost much of its luster.

Whether lawmakers can fulfill his wish to approve a bill by the end of summer remains unclear. The education law--enacted in 2002 under then-President George W. Bush--addresses issues including school performance ratings, standardized testing, teacher quality, academic standards and equity for the poor. Consideration of whether it should also address other controversial topics, such as teacher merit pay and public vouchers for students attending private school, could complicate what is likely to be a prolonged debate. Read more in this article by Nick Anderson in The Washington Post online.

More than three-quarters of the nation's public schools could soon be labeled "failing" under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the Obama administration said March 9 as it increased efforts to revamp the signature education initiative of President George W. Bush.

The projection from Education Secretary Arne Duncan amounted to a declaration that the school-ratings revolution Bush began nearly 10 years ago is itself in jeopardy because the law has become unworkable. President Obama is pushing to loosen accountability rules for most schools but crack down harder on the worst. To learn more, read the full article by Nick Anderson in the Education section of The Washington Post website.

 Federal officials plan to overhaul the reporting requirements for higher education-based teacher preparation in favor of leaner, outcome-based indicators of program quality, according to plans outlined in the president's fiscal 2012 budget request.

To bolster the overhaul, the budget also proposes a $185 million new formula grant program, dubbed the Presidential Teaching Fellows, that would give money to states for scholarships to high-quality teacher-candidates—in exchange for the development of accountability systems that do a better job of distinguishing between exemplary and lackluster preparation programs and routes. To learn more, read the full article by Stephen Sawchuk on the Education Week website.