NPR – Claudio Sanchez
“It’s official. More than 13 years after President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, it’s now … well, still law. But, as of Thursday, it is one big step closer to retirement. The U.S. Senate voted 81-17 in favor of a bipartisan overhaul called the Every Child Achieves Act. The move comes just days after House Republicans voted on a rival plan, one that cleared the House without a single Democratic vote. The two bills must now be reconciled before anything makes its way to the president. Obama has already threatened the House bill with a veto. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is, itself, an overhaul of a much older law: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), first signed by President Lyndon Johnson back in 1965. It was conceived and driven by a powerful conviction that the federal government had to intervene in the education of poor and minority students who were not well-served by their states and local public schools.”(more)