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This article reports that education will be on the ballot November 4, even if the subject hasn't been on voters' minds much during the 2008 campaign season. The results of the elections are likely to have a significant impact on the way schools are financed, governed, and held accountable for the academic performance of their students. At the polls, voters will be choosing the next president and members of Congress, who will decide the future of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. They will elect governors in 11 states, state legislators in 44 states, and local officials in hundreds of cities, towns, counties, and school districts across the country. They will also weigh a host of education policy issues, including school financing and charter schools, through dozens of state and local ballot measures. But candidates aren't always giving clear indications of what they would do to improve the quality of American schools. On the biggest item of education business the next president is expected to face, the already-overdue NCLB reauthorization, the two major-party candidates have not been specific about such key questions as how they might change the law's accountability measures, improve the quality of its assessments, or finance it.

The campaigns of Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama engaged in a sharp and testy exchange on education last week, making the topic the center of debate for the first time since the long race for the presidency began. Neither candidate changed course on the policies he is promising to pursue. However, Obama sought to distinguish himself from McCain in two public appearances, trying to portray himself as a bipartisan problem-solver for schools. Each campaign also released a hard-hitting TV ad attacking the other candidate's record on education. The attention to education in the first week of campaigning after the back-to-back Democratic and Republican conventions was heartening to some observers. However, it is unlikely that a substantive debate will emerge from the week's activities, one political scientist said, because the campaigns appear to be focusing on the opposing candidate's character and personality.

This article describes one community-based nonprofit group that provides free tutoring to poor children under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. Unlike most other tutoring sessions under the law, the one at Erie Neighborhood House, a social-services agency in Chicago, is not happening in a school building or at a corporate tutoring outlet. Those types of providers serve the vast majority of the students receiving tutoring--also known as supplementary educational services, or SES--under the federal law. Most of the debate over when and how to offer SES, in fact, has been over whether school districts or for-profit companies are better suited to help children from schools that are not making their annual achievement targets under the NCLB law. Community-based nonprofit organizations are small, but important participants in the supplementary market. In addition to Erie Neighborhood House, other nonprofit groups offering the tutoring include the Urban League in cities such as Memphis and Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the United Farm Workers union in Arizona, California, and New Mexico. Such nonprofit organizations are closely connected to their local community members and are trusted by them. They also can alter existing programs easily to add the tutoring that students need to improve their academic standing. At Erie Neighborhood House, the nonprofit group's leaders decided to offer NCLB-related tutoring as part of the after-school program that it has operated for more than 30 years. Unlike the competitive relationship between businesses and school districts, Erie has a long history of working with local elementary schools.

In the debate over the future of the No Child Left Behind Act, policymakers, educators, and researchers seem to agree on one thing: The federal law's accountability system should be rewritten so it rewards or sanctions schools on the basis of students' academic growth. The U.S. Department of Education recently reaffirmed the Bush administration's commitment to so-called growth models. Earlier this month, the department announced it would approve all states' growth models that meet its criteria for participating in a 2-year-old pilot project. Compared with the NCLB law's current "status model"--which makes accountability decisions by tracking the test scores of one year's group of students against the previous year's--growth models, by tracking individual students' progress, can provide a more accurate picture of whether a school is succeeding in helping its students. But despite widespread support for the concept, the path to implementing growth models under a revised No Child Left Behind law won't be easy, researchers and policymakers say.

President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton have both enacted significant expansions in federal oversight of K-12 schools during their terms. In the combined 15 years of the Clinton and Bush presidencies so far, the federal government has required states to set academic goals for their students and has made schools and districts accountable for meeting those goals. With the campaigns for the 2008 presidential nominations in full swing, few of the current candidates have laid out detailed strategies for improving the quality of American schools and increasing the knowledge and skills of the nation's elementary and secondary students. So far, most of the 16 Democrats and Republicans who hope to win the presidency a year from now have given general ideas of their education platforms only when asked for them in debates. None has released policy proposals as comprehensive or as specific as those of Clinton and Bush in their initial campaigns. In this article, the author reports some of the educational goals of the candidates for the 2008 presidential nominations. [This article was produced by Editorial Projects in Education, Bethesda, MD.]

The community in Rockland County is working together to come up with proposed changes to No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This may be the only community-wide effort in the United States to closely study the lengthy law and recommend detailed changes to it. Under the Rockland County plan, which is discussed in this article, the tests in the accountability system would measure students' progress based on portfolios of work and grades for classroom participation, as well as scores on mostly multiple-choice exams. However, testing would occur less frequently, and schools would be graded based on results for 4th and 8th graders, not the larger group the currently falls under the NCLB system.

The No Child Left Behind Act is slated to be reauthorized in 2007, and both President Bush and the leaders of the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress have signaled their interest in keeping renewal of the law on schedule. Many observers expect the debate over renewing the law--which itself was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, first passed in 1965--to touch on at least a half-dozen other big ideas for changes. Those themes include proposals for national academic standards; accountability models that measure students' learning growth; testing and achievement targets for special populations, such as students with disabilities and English-language learners; revisions in the sanctions for schools that miss their performance targets; greater accountability for high schools; and more attention to teacher quality. These ideas are discussed in this article.

Kentucky schools are poised to get their biggest state spending boost in more than a decade, but educators say it won't be enough to counter a lawsuit arguing the state inadequately finances its K-12 schools. In the legisltative session that concluded earlier this month, Kentucky lawmakers passed a two-year budget with $7.9 billion for K-12 education, a 14 percent increase over the current two-year spending plan. The increase is the highest since the 30 percent jump in the biennial budget for fiscal years 1991, and 1992, according to the state budget director's office. The increases in the budget, which is awaiting Governor Ernie Fletcher's signature, would not satisfy the school districts that are suing the state. They cite estimates from school finance studies that found the state is almost $1 billion short of providing districts enough to meet the state's academic goals.

State leaders have just begun counting the billions of dollars it will take for schools in the Gulf Coast region to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Schools around the country, meanwhile, continue to welcome the estimated 300,000-plus students displaced by the storm--some 50,000 of whom were learning that their home schools would likely be closed for the rest of the academic year. Leaders from states like Louisiana and Mississippi and others in the region suggested that their schools would need broad latitude in applying federal rules governing school accountability, as they try to recover from one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history. As leaders in the storm-torn region started to map out the future of their schools, they made it clear that they don't believe they'll be able to rebuild or even reopen them without federal help. In this article, the author describes how state leaders are joining forces to request for waivers exempting them from goals for adequate yearly progress and teacher-quality rules under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Michael A. Rebell, a 61-year-old former Peace Corps volunteer, is one of a small band of lawyers whose legal efforts are changing the way many states pay for their public schools. He was among many lawyers of the era who had been inspired by landmark cases such as "Brown v. Board of Education." In the late 1980s, he noticed education cases would win in court, but that the final resolution wouldn't actually solve the problems. This article reports on how he made a difference through social involvement and as a lawyer.

Describes the experiences of a high school science teacher who joined a 5-week National Science Foundation research excursion to Antarctica that involved him as a participating researcher. The paper explains challenges that he encountered related to the physical environment, working conditions, and relationships with his colleagues. (SM)

This article reports that the National standards--once the untouchable "third rail" of American education policy--now have the backing of the nation's governors, a growing number of education leaders, and the U.S. secretary of education. The National Governors Association last week adopted a policy statement endorsing a process to develop common academic standards by comparing student performance on international tests. The governors join several education groups--the Council of the Great City Schools, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the American Federation of Teachers among them--in endorsing the idea that the nation should set a common definition of what students should know and be able to do.

The Los Angeles Unified School District stands to receive an estimated $566 million in extra Title I and special education money--plus an undetermined amount of state stabilization money--from the federal stimulus package. This article reports that officials in hard-hit states like California are breathing a little easier now that they can use some of the more than $100 billion in emergency federal education support to plug holes in budgets for the current school year. But they still don't know how they will allocate money for the 2009-2010 school year, and whether the federal stimulus funds will be enough to prevent teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, and reductions in other services.

Almost 30,000 schools in the United States failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in the 2007-2008 school year. For states with comparable data for the 2006-2007 school year, the number of such schools increased by 28%. Half those schools missed their achievement goals for two or more years, putting almost one in five of the nation's public schools in some stage of a federally mandated process designed to improve student achievement. The number facing sanctions represents a 13% increase for states with comparable data over the 2006-2007 school year. The rising number of schools failing to make AYP under the law is inevitable, its critics say, because of what they see as the law's unrealistic requirement that student achievement rise on a pace so that all students are proficient in reading and math by the end of the 2013-2014 school year. However, supporters of the NCLB law say that the numbers suggest that the law has spurred many schools to take steps to improve.

George W. Bush entered the White House determined to change federal education policy. In his first year as the president, Bush forged a bipartisan consensus around the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which he signed into law on January 8, 2002. For the first time, states receiving federal K-12 education funding would be required to hold districts and schools accountable for the achievement of students, regardless of their income levels, special education status, or ethnic, racial, or native-language backgrounds. As President Bush prepares to leave office on January 20, 2009. he calls the NCLB law one of his important domestic accomplishments. This article describes the flaws in NCLB's accountability system, discusses why it is not popular among educators, and describes how President-elect Barack Obama might implement some changes to NCLB.

President-elect Barack Obama and his team started work this week on a transition that includes searching for the people who will bring to life his agenda of expanding preschool, improving the quality of teachers, and fixing the major federal law in K-12 education. Within 24 hours of his election, the Illinois Democrat assigned a team of campaign advisers and staff members the task of hiring political hands and policy experts to lead the incoming administration's efforts and to develop a plan to turn campaign ideas into reality. Obama, who defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona in a hard-fought campaign that concluded November 4, has promised to add $10 billion a year to federal preschool spending, "recruit an army of new teachers," double federal funding for charter schools, and provide scholarships to college students and to professionals from other fields who agree to pursue careers in teaching. With budget pressures driven by deep troubles in the financial markets and in the broader U.S. economy, the Obama administration may have difficulty generating public support for the campaign's ambitious education agenda and the spending that would be required for the programs in it.

Throughout the presidential campaign, the leading Democrats have been speaking from a similar script on education--until this month, when U.S. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois suggested that he could be persuaded to support private school vouchers. "If there was any argument for vouchers, it was "Let's see if the experiment works"," Sen. Obama told the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Feb. 13. "And if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what's best for kids." The statement diverges from the stance of U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who rejected any private-school-choice proposals in her interview with the same editors the next day. Although Sen. Obama's campaign has since downplayed his voucher comments, the exchange suggests that the two remaining Democratic contenders have subtle but important differences in their approaches to federal education policy, whether the topic is expanding school choice, rewriting the No Child Left Behind Act, or experimenting with new forms of teacher pay. The differences may not appear big to the typical voter, but they reflect the experiences of two candidates who have both been involved in education improvement efforts during their careers.

Buried deep within the campaign Web site of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican explains the principles that define his K-12 agenda: choice, accountability, and teacher quality. But his 25-year congressional record and statements in his current campaign do give a glimpse of what Senator McCain--better known for his views on defense and federal spending--might try to accomplish in education as president. For much of the past decade, he has sponsored bills to underwrite private school choice, including the 2004 passage of a voucher program for students in the District of Columbia. He has supported efforts to boost federal funding for special education programs. In 2001, he voted for the No Child Left Behind Act and has voiced his support for it during his presidential campaign.

Supporters and critics of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) agree on only one thing and that the law should be fixed and quickly. However, it looks that Congress will not be able to make much progress in addressing the flaws of NCLB this year. This circumstance will endanger the prospects that the revision of the law might not be completed before President George Bush leaves office. Efforts to revise the law are mired in backroom negotiations in both the House and the Senate and show no signs of gaining the momentum necessary to ensure completion of the reauthorization in 2008. With Congress' agenda filled with other tasks, including a potentially protracted fight with President Bush over spending on education and other domestic programs, it will be difficult for lawmakers to meet their self-imposed goals of ensuring passage of NCLB bills in both the House and the Senate this year, followed by a compromise version the two chambers can approve in early 2008. [This article was produced by Editorial Projects in Education, Bethesda, MD.]

For all the debate over the effectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act, researchers and policymakers say that, despite the law's flaws, it has successfully identified 1,200 public schools that need help, some of them desperately so. Now the question is: How can the federal law be changed to make sure such schools get that help? As Congress works to reauthorize the 5-year-old education law, researchers and interest groups have put out lists of policy proposals that would expand state officials' tool kits for intervening in struggling schools, including expanding school choice under the law, pouring extra money into the troubled schools, and finding ways to differentiate interventions depending on schools' needs. In the early stages of the reauthorization debate, prescriptions for turning around struggling schools have taken a back seat, though, to issues such as whether to adopt national standards and how to measure students' academic growth. However, many advocates say that turning around poorly performing schools is the most important matter facing Congress. Current intervention requirements and proposed fixes are described.

President Bush says that the No Child Left Behind Act is working, pointing to student-achievement results from a single subsection of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and tentative Reading First data. But the evidence available to support his claim is questionable. The data Mr. Bush cited are from just the "long-term trend" NAEP in reading and math, researchers say. All available data, they add, show modest improvements that can't be attributed to the 5-year-old law. Instead, progress in achievement is more likely a continuation of trends that predate the law. In addition to speeches citing the NAEP long-term-trend data, members of the Bush administration have lauded the success of the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program, the largest new initiative in the NCLB law. Preliminary results show some gains in students' reading fluency. Those gains, however, are based on a compilation of all test results in annual state reports for Reading First. Although such an assemblage of test scores can provide a general view of student progress, some researchers question whether the compilation says much about reading proficiency. While most researchers say it's too early to measure the NCLB law's impact on achievement, many are beginning to see evidence that educators are changing their behavior as a result of both the federal law and policies that took root in the 1990s at the onset of the movement for higher standards and greater accountability in education.

This article discusses the democratic majority's move to put education policy on agenda. The leaders of the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress say they will make college affordability their top education policy priority, while also working to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, a goal they share with President Bush. In this article, the author discusses the problems that may arise, and might cause a struggle to accomplish both the Democrat's higher education agenda and the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. Aside from this, the author also discusses the likely support of some Key House Republicans behind the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The classes of 2006 in California, Arizona, and Utah are those states' first that must pass high school exit exams to earn diplomas. Twenty-three states now have such exams. Maryland will require a graduation test for next year's class, and Washington state will do so for the class of 2008. In most states with such a requirement, students take the high school exit exam for the first time in sophomore year. The content on the tests is usually at a 10th grade level. Students who fail usually have several opportunities to retake the tests. In many states, students must pass tests in more than one subject. This article briefly describes these states' graduation requirements.

Louisiana state schools Superintendent Cecil J. Picard is working to rebuild the New Orleans school system while battling Lou Gehrig's disease. Cecil J. Picard walks confidently and purposefully to his seat, using a cane to support his weakening right leg. The widow's peak and his graying hair are signs that he's lived 68 years, and the cane serves notice that he is not as strong as he used to be. Mr. Picard is here for one in a series of public meetings on solving the biggest problem he has taken on in 40-plus years as an educator and politician: rebuilding the storm-ravaged New Orleans public schools. At the same time, he is fighting a personal battle that he almost certainly will not win: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. In his career, he has led two high schools through desegregation. He has pushed to improve teacher quality and hold schools accountable as a state legislator. He has built Louisiana's nationally recognized system of testing and accountability as the state schools chief. Now, he must open 35 schools. That will not be easy in a city where rubble piles are ubiquitous and utility service is still spotty almost 10 months after Hurricane Katrina struck, and where the federal bureaucracy has yet to deliver the money to finance school repairs.

Teachers may reap rewards on payday during the upcoming school year, thanks to increasingly flush state coffers and the political dynamics of an election year. Governors from both political parties, in many of the 36 states holding gubernatorial elections in the fall of 2006, are urging their legislatures to raise pay for teachers or give them cash incentives to improve their own skills and boost their students' performance. The proposals include across-the-board raises in Alabama and New Mexico and a hike in the minimum salary in Arizona. The governors of Alaska and Mississippi are pitching employee bonuses tied to gains in student achievement. The teacher-pay proposals in a dozen or more states are possible because balance sheets are healthier than at any time since the economic downturn that ravaged state revenues starting in 2001. Forty-plus states are collecting more money than anticipated in the current fiscal year, and two dozen are raising revenue projections for fiscal 2007, which begins July 1, 2006 in most states. The proposals are also a sign that many governors seeking re-election hope to woo educators at the ballot box and impress voters in general with efforts to reward teachers and improve schools.

Thousands of children displaced by one of the most destructive natural disasters ever to strike the United States will be back in school soon, sometimes as far as 500 miles away from home. Whether their own schools are flooded in New Orleans or missing roofs in Biloxi, Mississippi, many students will find a spot in a classroom in the town where they've landed. This article discusses the open-door policies that were implemented, as well as efforts made by states to bring some sense of normal life to students, parents, and educators after Katrina left hundreds of schools in Louisiana and Mississippi closed indefinitely.

The services in Arkansas are provided by a federal grant program intended to expand public school choice, even though many others served under the grant have never attended a public school. The U.S. Department of Education's decision to award $4.1 million over the past two years to a project involving William J. Bennett's company--which provides children with computers, art and science supplies, and textbooks--raises questions about whether the privately held, for-profit K12 Inc. benefited from political connections. An "Education Week" review of federal and state documents, as well as information from sources familiar with the grantmaking process, shows that K12 and its Arkansas partner received the grant despite the fact that one project that independent reviewers rated higher was not funded.

As Congress began debate last week over the size and scope of more than $120 billion in proposed emergency education aid, state leaders were anxiously awaiting the details so they could make specific plans to spend the economic-stimulus money. Governors, state legislators, and state schools chiefs have yet to learn what rules Congress will attach to any such influx of federal money, which proponents say would help offset losses in state revenues, supplement existing programs, and start a short-term construction program aimed at fighting the recession. The figures may not be final for two weeks or more, and state officials can't nail down their own plans until they know the final dollar amounts and the conditions placed on their use.

At the end of a presidential campaign in which education received some attention but never emerged as a top-tier issue, analysts were trying to look beyond the week's election to the K-12 issues awaiting the next president and gauge where they might fit as a new administration prepares to grapple with a global economic crisis. While education never registered high in surveys assessing the issues that would sway voters in the 2008 election, the American public wants the country's schools to improve and would rally around a president who set out to help them do so, one pollster said. But others suggest that education's low standing as an issue in the latest election cycle foreshadows four years in which the next president won't make it a high priority.

The No Child Left Behind Act has been the subject of intense debate in school board meetings, state legislatures, and Washington policy circles. Everywhere, it seems, but the presidential campaign--the winner of which may have the most important voice in reshaping the federal role in K-12 education. In their education proposals, Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain have outlined specific plans to address provisions of the almost 7-year-old federal education law. Both would refocus the teacher-quality section to bolster the recruitment of new teachers and to experiment with new forms of teacher pay. McCain promises to make school choice and tutoring available to students in struggling schools sooner than the current law allows. However, neither candidate has said what he would do to address significant questions about the NCLB law's future, such as whether to keep its goal of universal student proficiency in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-2014 school year, how to increase the rigor of states' academic standards, and how to improve the interventions in schools failing to meet achievement goals. The presidential nominees have not discussed such issues because voters are not demanding it. Instead, the candidates are responding to sentiment for answers on the economy, in particular, as well as foreign policy and other matters.

Democrats are almost certain to leave their convention in Denver united behind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois as their nominee for president. However, it is less likely that they will settle an intraparty disagreement over the most pressing question in K-12 education policy: How much can the public expect of schools? The stark differences emerged the week after Senator Obama secured enough delegates to claim the nomination in June. On back-to-back days, two groups released public statements outlining approaches for improving K-12 achievement. One argued that policymakers need to invest in health care and other social programs before schools can deliver large increases in student achievement, while the other said that increased accountability, the expansion of charter schools, and other education policies would result in better student outcomes. The debate over education policy and its priorities is unlikely to play a prominent role in the fall campaign because education policy issues have not been a top-tier concern of voters this year. However, the statements do illuminate the differences among Democrats that will arise once the next president takes office and Congress returns to its effort to reauthorize the NCLB law.

This article reports that the six states that now have federal approval to change the way they hold schools accountable under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act will use six different ways to distinguish between schools with minor problems and those that need total overhauls. The variety of approaches will help inform Congress when it resumes debate over reauthorizing the NCLB law in 2009, and help it address complaints that the current law doesn't offer enough flexibility to decide what actions states and districts may take in addressing individual schools' needs. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was discouraged that many other states had failed to take up the challenge to change the way they intervene in schools failing to make adequate yearly progress under the 6 1/2-year-old NCLB law. One official representing states isn't surprised, though, that states weren't willing to rewrite their accountability systems to participate in the pilot project--one of several initiatives Ms. Spellings has introduced this year because Congress has postponed its effort to reauthorize the law. Other critics suggest that the plans Secretary Spellings approved would undermine the NCLB law's requirement that schools be held responsible for student achievement across various demographic groups.

Should schools be held primarily responsible for improving student achievement, or do they need help from health and social programs to ensure their students' success? Two sets of prominent educators and policy leaders released statements last June 2008 emphasizing different answers to that question. Both groups acted with the same purpose: to inform and highlight the debate over education in the 2008 presidential campaign and to influence the future of the No Child Left Behind Act and other policies of the next president. Leaders of the groups said release of their statements on consecutive days was a coincidence after months of work. Their unveiling one week after the end of presidential-primary season was a sign that advocates hope to raise the level of debate over education in the general election. In the primaries, education played a low-key role in the debates and speeches of the candidates. The leaders of both groups hope to change that low profile now that Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama are preparing for the November 4 election.

The presumed November match-up produced by the long presidential-primary season offers contrasting approaches to K-12 policy, along with some common ground on the basics of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, his Democratic counterpart, both express support for the NCLB's goals and its use of testing to measure schools' success. But Senator McCain would promote market forces as a way to spur school improvement, and would consider freezing education spending as part of a review of the effectiveness of federal programs. Senator Obama, meanwhile, promises to search for new ways of assessing students and to invest significantly in efforts to improve teacher quality. Although education was not a prominent issue in the Democratic or Republican primaries, it could emerge more clearly in the general-election campaign, one political scientist said, pointing to the potential for sharper focus on where the candidates stand on the requirements for testing and accountability under the NCLB law.

With the congressional effort to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act at a standstill, schools and districts will need to stay on target toward the law's goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics in the next six years--or else face sanctions or interventions. That process will be especially hard in 23 states that made the achievement targets relatively easy to meet in the first years of implementing the 6-year-old federal law. Starting with the current school year, schools and districts in those states will have to make annual gains of 10 percentage points or more in the proportion of students scoring as proficient in those subjects, says a report released in May. The process of determining whether a school makes adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the federal law is so complicated that it's impossible to estimate how many schools will fail to meet their AYP targets because their state will require these more-extensive achievement gains, said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, the Washington research group that produced the report, in an interview. But it's clear, he added, that dozens--perhaps hundreds--of schools will fail to meet goals established in states that assumed that schools would be ready to make dramatic increases in student achievement in the years closer to the deadline.

In a comprehensive action intended to change how the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) law is carried out, the U.S. Secretary of Education formally proposed a package of new regulations that would require state and local school officials to provide more and better information about high school graduation rates, student test performance, and the availability and quality of tutoring under the federal law. The proposed rules, which are now open for public comment, would standardize the definition states use in determining graduation rates, require schools to make extensive efforts to ensure eligible students know they can transfer to different schools or sign up for free tutoring, and force states to publish their scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress alongside their own test results. The rules also would clarify that state tests should assess students on more than basic skills. The Secretary said she is using her administrative powers because Congress and the Bush administration have been unable to agree on a reauthorized version of the NCLB law. Critics note that even with expedited review and publication, the proposed rules would not be in place until late August, charging that even if the regulations are in place in time for the coming school year, it would be unreasonable to expect districts and states to comply with them so soon, [Lynn Olson and Michele McNeil contributed to this report.]

Every day, 14 retired teachers and other school employees arrive at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' headquarters and go to work for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The retirees--working with volunteers and union staff members from as far away as Alaska--are working to inform teachers' union members why the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) favors the New York senator for the Democratic presidential nomination over Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. According to Ted Kirsch, the president of the 36,000-member AFT Pennsylvania, Obama and Clinton are very close on most issues, however, there is a clear difference on the issue of education. Senator Clinton has been more emphatic about overhauling the No Child Left Behind Act and has opposed merit pay for teachers. On the other hand, Obama did not "have a clear position" on the federal law when AFT leaders interviewed him last year. Political experts question whether Obama's and Clinton's different take on education will matter much for teachers voting next week in the Pennsylvania primary. In Pennsylvania, polls are finding that voters are choosing the candidates based largely on personal appeal.

This article reports on plans by the Bush administration to set a uniform way for states to calculate and report their graduation rates, which could make it harder for high schools to avoid accountability measures under the No Child Left Behind Act. In the U.S. Department of Education's latest move to refine the implementation of the NCLB law, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said last week she would propose rules that would "ensure that all states use the same formula to calculate how many students graduate from high school on time." Secretary Spellings said that federal action is needed because states often publish graduation-rate that fail to accurately count all students who drop out of school. The secretary did not explain which formula she would propose for states to use, nor did she say whether high schools and school districts would be held accountable for their graduation rates for every subgroup of students. Ms. Spellings also did not say whether the Education Department would require states to set ambitious targets for improving graduation rates. Under plans previously approved by the department, most states' rules allow high schools and school districts to escape the NCLB law's accountability measures even though they make little or no progress in improving graduation rates, said Bethany Little, the vice president for policy at the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington advocacy group for high school improvement. Secretary Spellings' proposal follows an earlier national initiative to improve the quality of data on dropouts and graduates.

Six years after the No Child Left Behind Act became law, many states still haven't completed one of its most important tasks: establishing a testing system that meets the law's requirement that they track all students' progress toward proficiency in reading and math. Although the progress has been slow, U.S. Department of Education officials and state leaders suggest that states have made adequate strides in meeting the formidable challenge of dramatically increasing the amount of testing and creating new exams that measure the success of students with disabilities. One critic of the pace said that states should be much further along in complying with the testing rules. The 1994 version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which the NCLB law is the latest version, required states to assess students in key subjects at least three times during their K-12 careers--thus pointing the way, that critic suggested, to the more extensive NCLB mandate. The approval status of a state's testing plan has become especially important recently because a state must have such approval to participate in two federal projects intended to give states greater flexibility in implementing the NCLB law.

As President Bush nears the end of his tenure, his administration is putting its final stamp on the No Child Left Behind Act and trying to lay the groundwork for the law's future. This article reports on the latest effort of President Bush's administration that will allow as many as 10 states to create alternative interventions for schools that have failed to meet their achievement targets under the 6-year-old law. Under the U.S. Department of Education's new "differential accountability" pilot project, eligible states will be allowed to overhaul the way in which they spend federal K-12 funds to intervene in low-performing schools and to implement their plans in the 2008-09 school year. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings' goal is to offer states new flexibility in carrying out the NCLB law and to develop policies for Congress to consider if lawmakers do not renew the law this year. Although many observers and policymakers say that the NCLB law needs to refine its interventions based on the needs of individual schools, several questioned whether the U.S. Department of Education's proposal is the best approach. A critic of the law said that the pilot project will be too small and too limited to change the problems that schools are having in implementing the law or to improve the public perception of it.

This article reports that by next fall--only months before she leaves office--U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings plans to have five teachers on her staff and set up a group of 20 ad hoc advisers still working in classrooms. Under the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program the teachers would work at the department for one year starting in July. In addition, the department will tap up to 20 teachers to be part-time advisers while continuing to teach in their classrooms. They will be selected by Secretary Spellings' staff, and will be paid as federal employees for one year. Ms. Spellings recognized the value of such advice after working closely with teachers who were placed at the department in the White House Fellows program. It selects young professionals to work alongside White House staff members and Cabinet secretaries.

This article reports on two national teachers' unions' different approaches to the 2008 U.S. election campaign. The National Education Association is ready to spend $40 million this election year, but it is not ready to endorse a candidate for president. The American Federation Teachers, by contrast, is working aggressively for U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who represents the home state of more than a third of the union's 1.3 million members. The union is not united, though: Its Illinois affiliate and the Chicago local are recruiting volunteers for their state's favorite son, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Clinton's chief rival for the Democratic nomination. Meanwhile, the 3.2 million-member NEA's state affiliates are making their own decisions. Some are endorsing candidates, while several affiliates have remained neutral but seen their leaders make personal endorsements, all among Democrats. While both national teachers' unions are using different tactics, they are each making decisions that will ensure they have clout in the long run, one union observer said.

In her three years as U.S. secretary of education, Margaret Spellings has been a celebrity contestant on "Jeopardy!," a guest on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," and an occasional subject of Washington's best-read gossip column. Above all, though, she's been the nation's leading spokeswoman for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). With one year left on the job and Congress stalled over reauthorizing the 6-year-old federal education law, the task of promoting and defending it is tougher than ever. But Ms. Spellings plans to continue her plain-spoken pitch for the NCLB law, which is one of President Bush's biggest domestic-policy accomplishments and something he wants to be part of his legacy. This article profiles Secretary Spellings.

All states that meet federal criteria will now be allowed to take part in the U.S. Department of Education's 2-year-old experiment with "growth models," which let states measure individual students' achievement gains as a way of ensuring accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act. After originally capping participation at 10 states, and approving just eight, department officials this week opened eligibility for the growth-model pilot project to all qualified states. The officials say that the first states to use those models in the project have shown it can be done without compromising the goals of the law. The new states will have to meet the same criteria as the original eight. They will have to gauge whether students are on track to attain proficiency in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-14 school year. They also will have to make sure their testing systems produce consistent results across grade levels. State officials will welcome the opportunity to sign up for the expanded pilot because it's clear that the NCLB law's accountability measures will eventually focus on academic growth, said Scott R. Palmer, the director of the education practice at the Washington office of the law firm Holland & Knight.

With the number of students eligible for federally financed tutoring continuing to grow, school officials and tutoring providers are fighting over the scope of the program and debating how to measure its quality. As Congress revisits the tutoring initiative and other sections of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, lawmakers want answers to questions that are vital for the future of the program. To its supporters, who include U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and leading congressional Republicans, the tutoring program offers students the chance for focused instruction that they aren't otherwise receiving in their schools and can compensate students who attend inadequate schools. To its critics, though, tutoring done under the nearly 6-year-old law has been poorly monitored and has siphoned federal money away from schools that could be spent on providing reading teachers and other services directly tied to states' academic standards. Congress is working on a bill to reauthorize the NCLB law. Leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee are working on a bipartisan bill for the committee to consider. Issues related to testing, accountability, and teacher pay have been the subject of the most public debate since the House panel's leaders released the first sections of a "discussion draft" bill in late August. Even if tutoring isn't as prominent or controversial as those issues, Congress still must confront questions about the tutoring program, also known as supplementary educational services, or SES.

When President Bush and Congress crafted the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, they agreed on one specific goal for academic achievement: All students would be proficient in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-14 school year. This article reports on the reconsideration of this law's timeline on proficiency. Once considered sacrosanct, that goal appears to be open for negotiation as House and Senate leaders consider plans to reauthorize the law. Although congressional leaders haven't proposed plans to relax the 2013-14 goal, they have backed down from earlier public statements supporting it. Their recent statements suggest that they are willing to reconsider the timeline. The House Education and Labor Committee's draft NCLB-renewal bill would require schools to track students' academic growth based on the law's original proficiency deadline, but the target and everything else in the draft are open for discussion.

This article reports on two national teachers' unions that have mounted a vigorous lobbying campaign to rewrite language linking teacher bonuses to student test scores and other incentive-pay provisions contained in a draft bill for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act. Members of the National Education Association circulated in the halls of Congress on September 10 while the House Education and Labor Committee held a six-hour hearing on the panel's draft of a bill to reauthorize the 5 1/2-year-old education law. At the hearing, the panel's Democratic chairman chastised union leaders for backing away from support for an earlier bill that had also included pay-for-performance language. The day's events demonstrated the difficulties lawmakers face in forging a consensus on the future of the law. Interest groups as diverse as teachers' unions and business leaders disagree on fundamental issues such as teacher pay, student accountability, and other central elements of the law. In a discussion draft of the teacher-quality provisions released September 6, the House education committee would encourage districts to experiment with pay-for-performance plans and offer financial incentives to recruit teachers to hard-to-staff schools. Among other provisions, the draft calls for using student test-score data as one factor in determining whether teachers are eligible for bonuses.

This article reports on the "discussion draft" released on September 6, about a week after a preliminary proposal to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law's core Title I program was unveiled. Under the latest House proposal for reauthorizing the NCLB Act, the federal government would invest billions in improving the nation's teaching corps by offering professional development to teachers, recruiting new ones, and providing incentives to draw good teachers to the schools that need them the most. The draft proposal also would keep intact most of the current NCLB law's reporting requirements on whether teachers are "highly qualified" and add new requirements that states identify the districts and schools most in need of highly qualified teachers.