Obama's 2nd term to test his education program
President Obama has already begun to sketch the outlines of an ambitious second-term agenda, touting his mandate on tax rates and making comprehensive immigration reform a top legislative priority. But when it comes to education reform, looming battles over politics and funding threaten to leave students and educators nationwide in the lurch - and could derail the president's legacy on an issue he's long touted as paramount to his vision for governing.
The Department of Education declined to comment to CBSNews.com on the administration's second-term agenda for education, but in remarks last week to the Council of Chief State School Officers, Education Secretary Arne Duncan signaled a broad commitment to building upon the administration's previous efforts in the coming years.
"Our basic theory of action is not going to change," Duncan said, according to his prepared remarks. "The real work of improving schools doesn't happen in Washington. Our job, in a second term, is to support the bold and transformational reforms at the state and local level that so many of you have pursued during the last four years."
Chief among those reforms include the administration's Race to the Top program, a $4.35 billion competition designed to spur innovation and reforms in state and local K-12 education, and waivers exempting states from the controversial "No Child Left Behind" law, which Congress has yet to reauthorize. The president has