WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Changing education laws will aid state and local efforts to help ensure students graduate ready for college and a career, the U.S. Education Department said.
The plan to overhaul No Child Left Behind would ask states to ensure 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, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday in a release. This will be a priority in reforming NCLB, signed into law in 2002 and is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, he said.
"We will work with Congress on a bipartisan basis to reauthorize ESEA this year," Duncan said about the blueprint, which the Obama administration released Saturday. "We owe it to our children and our country to act now."
Under the blueprint, state accountability systems would determine high school graduation requirements so students would be prepared to do well in college and careers, the Education Department said. The accountability system would recognize and reward high-poverty schools and districts that are showing academic improvement, and take rigorous actions in the lowest performing schools to lift or potentially close them.
"We're offering support, incentives and national leadership, but not at the expense of local control." Duncan said. "Our children have one chance for a great education. Together, we need to get it right."
