Congress is making another run at rewriting the Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law, even as the Obama administration urges changes it says would ensure that schools are held accountable when their students are seriously lagging behind their peers in better-performing schools.
The Senate opened debate Tuesday on an update to the 2002 law, with the bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., calling it “the most effective path toward higher standards, better teaching and real accountability.”
The annual reading and math tests outlined in No Child would continue to be a part of the law. But the so-called “Every Child Achieves Act” whittles away at the federal role in education policy and instead shifts to the states decisions about how to use the required reading and math assessments to measure school and teacher performance.
