No Child Left Behind

MARCH 13, 2010, 1:37 P.M. ET

Obama Outlines Sweeping Education Revamp
Wall Street Journal

By NEIL KING JR. And BARBARA MARTINEZ
[Obama] AFP/Getty Images

Obama's education revamp would set firmer standards for success while lifting nearly all the measures that the Bush law used to try to prod change at failing schools.

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration plans to upend how the government measures and encourages success in the country's public schools as part of a sweeping proposal to rewrite President George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind law.

Dear Representative Bauer and Committee Members:

Today, Michigan Legislators are facing many difficult, unpopular
decisions. As high school principals who are put between ‘a rock and a hard place’ each day, we empathize with what you are going through.

In 1999, MASSP provided testimony to the Senate as to the critical need for an award system that would provide an incentive for students to take the HS MEAP. MASSP has not wavered in our support of the

The Michigan Education Association agrees with the call to improve the state's lowest performing schools, said spokesperson Doug Pratt, but the state needs to provide those schools with a picture of what is going wrong and some ideas for fixing those problems before removing the staff or closing the building.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires audits of a school's program to assess its needs, but Mr. Pratt said information the MEA has collected shows of 48 schools that appear to qualify as failing under bills under consideration in the House (see related story), 39 have not had such an audit.

And he argued the audits the Department of Education is now using because of staffing shortages do not provide the information schools would need to improve.

Sent on February 12, 2009

Dear Mr. Battaglieri,

Attached is the April 2009 installment of the NASSP Advocacy Update. This quarterly update includes information on legislative activities and updates in the following areas:
President Barack Obama
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (*please see my note below)
FY 2009 Appropriations
FY 2010 Budget
No Child Left Behind Act
Comprehensive Literacy Policy
Success in the Middle Act
SCHIP Reauthorization
Freshman Members of Congress
National Coalition for Public Education
NASSP Board Position Statements
NASSP Federal Grassroots Network
NASSP State Lobbyists Network

Attached is the January 2009 installment of the NASSP Advocacy Update. This quarterly update includes information on legislative activities and updates in the following areas:
President-Elect Barack Obama
Secretary of Education Nominee Arne Duncan
No Child Left Behind
Striving Readers Act
Middle Level and High School Reform
Federal Role in Education
National Principal Recruitment Act
Fast Track to College Act
Breakthrough Schools
IDEA Task Force
News from the U.S. Department of Education
NASSP Board Position Statements
NASSP Federal Grassroots Network
NASSP State Lobbyists Network

Please feel free to call or e-mail me if you have any questions. The next installment will be sent in early April.

Thank you!
Amanda

Amanda N. Karhuse

The 2006-2007 graduation rates will be calculated by tracking individual students who first enrolled in ninth grade in fall 2003, and graduated four years later with a regular diploma. Continuing students who were not reported as diploma recipients were recorded for accountability purposes as “off-track.”

Michigan and other states would have to ensure that schools required to restructure under the federal No Child Left Behind Act are making meaningful changes and local districts would have to be more clear to parents what tutoring and choice options are available under new regulations unveiled Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, speaking to the Detroit Economic Club, also announced the creation of a National Technical Advisory Council to meet the requirements of the law.
And she said she was continuing to work with Congress to have the law renewed.

STATE LOOKING TO EXTEND HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION TIME

The Department of Education is hoping federal officials will allow more Michigan high school students some extra time to graduate as they run up against the state’s higher graduation requirements.