The big news in the edu-world this week is that the feds are dangling something juicy in front of states sick of No Child Left Behind: A chance to wave aside the law's stringent testing goals.
The big catch is what they want in return and whether California is prepared to deliver it.
No Child Left Behind sets targets for student testing that critics say are unrealistic. Because the bar rises every year, more and more schools are considered failing, so many that the label is losing meaning. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called it "a slow-motion train wreck" in The New York Times.