The Obama Administration has a little bit of a timing problem on their hands. While attempting to re-authorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), it has to simultaneously balance the impending 2014-proficiency-for-all requirement in the last version of ESEA (the law formerly known as No Child Left Behind) with the requirements of the $3.4 billion competitive grant program known as Race to the Top (RTT) and the $3.5 billion in School Improvement Grant (SIG) money. There’s much in common between these three federal reform efforts, but there are also significant differences. The Obama Administration has laid out a smart, balanced
blueprint to deal with some of these issues, but it leaves the details to Congress.
I propose another alternative: Let the states figure it out for themselves. At first blush, this sounds more punitive than it is now, but bear with me.
See, NCLB is federal law. If nothing changes and Congress continues to wait on reauthorization, all the current
