President Barack Obama proposes broad changes in the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, which affects nearly 100,000 public schools. His plan keeps the required annual reading and math tests, but would replace the requirement that every child reach proficiency in reading and math. Instead, his goal is for all students to graduate from high school prepared for college and a career.
The law’s pass-fail school grading system would be replaced with one that would measure individual students’ academic growth and judge schools based not on test scores alone but also on indicators such as pupil attendance, graduation rates and learning climate.