The president said today he wants a No Child Left Behind rewrite before students' summer vacations end this September. And he wants other things, too. According to the Washington Post, Obama ?wants a more flexible system that focuses on preparing graduating students for college and career and he wants better assessments to understand whether kids are meeting that goal.? He wants ?skills such as critical thinking and creativity? to be reintegrated into math, science, and reading lessons, and he wants teachers to be both supported and judged to some degree by the rate of their students' academic progress. And he wants education to be funded robustly: ?Let me make it plain: We cannot cut education. We can't cut the things that will make America more competitive.? Quite the wish list.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow