Washington Post: NCLB Reauthorization "Bogged Down"

Peter Baker of the Washington Post has a very interesting article this morning. Itgoes through the history of NCLB, the way groups have chosen up sides, where things stand today, and the prospects for reauthorization. It's well worth your time, but just in case you don't click, here are a few snippets:

"...the campaign to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind education law has bogged down. Not only has it not passed, but no formal legislation has even been introduced. In an interview last week, [Senator] Kennedy said it will not happen this year after all. 'It's going to tip over to next year,' he said -- right into the teeth of a presidential campaign with candidates on both sides denouncing the program."

" If it is not reauthorized, the law will remain on the books unchanged."

"Boehner and other original authors of the law have grown pessimistic about their chances. 'It's slim to none that it gets reauthorized for a variety of reasons,' Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said. 'You have the hard left and the hard right against it. You're running into a presidential election when the Democrats certainly don't want to highlight one of the biggest domestic accomplishments of the president. And clearly the calendar works against it.'"

"Kennedy had warned the administration that it was vital to reauthorize No Child Left Behind before the presidential race really got underway. But he and the president had different ideas for how to revise the law. Bush, among other things, wanted to require testing on science and to give money to low-income students in bad schools to go to private schools. Kennedy wanted to expand the criteria for judging schools beyond just test results and do more to help struggling schools avoid being labeled failures."