Obama starts rewriting No Child Left Behind

Effort to make law more flexible began Wednesday.

The Obama administration launched an effort Wednesday to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, with a proposed increase in federal spending, a pledge to make the Bush-era school reform program more flexible and an appeal to Republicans for bipartisan cooperation.

To grease the legislative wheels, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, the administration will reserve $1 billion to fund programs that may emerge through a revision of the 2002 law. In addition, he said, President Obama is proposing to raise elementary and secondary education spending by $3 billion in the fiscal year that begins in October.

Overall, Duncan said, the education budget would increase by 6 percent. That would be the most significant annual increase since 2003, not counting the large infusion of funds made last year through the economic stimulus law to prevent teacher layoffs.

With the budget proposal, Obama seeks to turn the page on an era of reform that his predecessor, George W. Bush, defined through a campaign slogan that morphed into a school accountability movement.

No Child Left Behind mandated an expansion of standardized testing to measure progress toward closing student achievement gaps -- and imposed sanctions on schools that fell short. The concept has become ingrained in public education, but many experts say the law is overly punitive and ripe for revision.

"NCLB needs to be fixed right now," Duncan told reporters. "Clearly our goal would be this year."

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