Keeping my fingers crossed

MANIFESTO

Item:

The Obama administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, and will call for broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing, as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.

Educators who have been briefed by administration officials said the proposals for changes in the main law governing the federal role in public schools would eliminate or rework many of the provisions that teachers’ unions, associations of principals, school boards and other groups have found most objectionable.

Obviously, this story has a long way to go, but the mere fact that people are talking about the foolishness of creating a Lake Wobegon society (where every child is above average) is encouraging.