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The Obama administration's blueprint to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will support state and local efforts to help ensure that all students graduate prepared for college and a career. Following the lead of the nation's governors and state education leaders, the plan will ask states to ensure that their academic standards prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace, and to create accountability systems that recognize student growth and school progress toward meeting that goal. This will be a key priority in the reform of NCLB, which was signed into law in 2002 and is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).

Today, the Obama Administration outlined how states can get relief from provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – or No Child Left Behind (NCLB) – in exchange for serious state-led efforts to close achievement gaps, promote rigorous accountability, and ensure that all students are on track to graduate college- and career-ready. “To help states, districts and schools that are ready to move forward with education reform, our administration will provide flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change. The purpose is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level,” President Obama said. What this means for you:   For Teachers: A collaborative learning culture where teachers can target instruction towards the needs of students and offer a well-rounded curriculum. Fair and responsible evaluations that are based on multiple measures including peer review, principal observation, and classroom work.  For Principals: Greater flexibility to tailor solutions to the unique educational challenges of their students and recognition for progress and performance.  For Parents: Accurate and descriptive information about their children’s progress and honest accountability that recognizes and rewards success – where schools fall short – targeted and focused strategies for the students most at risk.  For Students: A system that measures student growth and critical thinking to inspire better teaching and greater student engagement across a well-rounded curriculum. For more information on how this flexibility package may affect you, read our blog post: What NCLB Flexibility Means for You

School districts and educators chafing under the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act are hoping to prod the U.S. Department of Education into giving them a reprieve from the provisions they see as most onerous, as the prospects for an overhaul of the law by Congress anytime soon remain cloudy.

Billings School District 2 trustees were listening to a report on No Child Left Behind compliance, hearing about which schools had the requisite percentage of children testing at grade level in math and reading, required by the 2002 federal law. The report was something of a mixed bag. In some cases, white students were performing better than their minority counterparts and students from more affluent homes were doing better than those from poorer families. But taken all together, 89 percent of Billings students were reading at or above grade level and 74 percent were doing math at that same level -- a good step above the 83 percent required for reading and the 68 percent required for math. And that's the problem, trustees were told. Starting next year, the requirements jump significantly.

Montana and the U.S. Department of Education have ended a No Child Left Behind showdown after federal officials agreed to let the state reset its proficiency targets so more schools would make "adequate yearly progress" this year.

As an older sibling of someone with developmental disabilities, I want to believe that my sister will have better options than exist today. Policies such as IDEA and NCLB were founded on philosophies derived from civil rights and an individual’s pursuit of happiness. These are meant to provide a semblance of equality and possibility for individuals with disabilities to grow and achieve their full potential. My sister, however, will never be able to fight for her happiness on her own. The state will always see her as a burden, and she will rely on a community to support and protect her.

Welcome to Montana's "No Child Left Behind Report Card".  The "Report Card" is required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The information is helpful in determining how Montana schools and districts are meeting the requirements of this federal legislation.  It should not be considered a comprehensive report on the quality of education provided by any Montana school or district.

Imagine a federally funded program that provides academic assistance to poor children, pays private vendors millions of dollars to hire tutors with questionable experience, gives them autonomy to choose their hourly pay rates and pupil-teacher ratios, and accepts the vendors' unconfirmed "self-evaluation" as evidence of academic improvement, a crucial condition for staying in the program.

For preschoolers in the United States, the pressure is on to learn math early and learn it well. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has put pressure on schools to make sure that all students are meeting state standards for achievement, and this has resulted in more rigorous math curricula and testing, starting in early elementary school. With increased public attention on the value of high-quality early childhood education, the pressure to perform has trickled down to our youngest students, and preschools are taking a closer look at their math programs and making adjustments that will prepare “little learners” for the challenges of elementary school.  And parents are always searching for better ways to boost their youngsters’ mastery of early math.

The Obama administration on Saturday called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape divisive provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan feels that the old standard, No Child Left Behind "was, frankly, broken." He explains, "it was far too punitive -- everybody was going to be labeled a failure, eventually." He hopes, with Race For The Top, to raise the bar, to "reward excellence in growth, how much schools are improving each year," and how much graduation rates increase.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan vowed Tuesday to abolish the so-called "2 percent rule" that obscures an accurate portrait of the academic needs of America's students with disabilities. In prepared remarks to the American Association of People with Disabilities gala in Washington, Duncan declared that students with disabilities should be judged with the same accountability system as everyone else.

Four of the lowest-performing schools in Montana recently got some good news. All four saw improvement in the annual state tests that measure how well 10th-graders are doing in math, reading and science, said Denise Juneau, state superintendent of public instruction.

"I came to the conclusion ... that No Child Left Behind has turned into a timetable for the destruction of American public education," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I had never imagined that the test would someday be turned into a blunt instrument to close schools — or to say whether teachers are good teachers or not — because I always knew children's test scores are far more complicated than the way they're being received today."