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USA Today (2/2, Toppo) reports that the Obama administration "will seek Congress' help in overhauling a key part of the 8-year-old No Child Left Behind education law," proposing that "a requirement that states increase the percentage of students meeting standards each year" be eliminated. Instead, President Obama "wants lawmakers to consider rewarding states that show progress toward internationally benchmarked, nationally developed standards." According to USA Today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan "told reporters the law 'often does little to reward progress' of schools that help students achieve - and lets states set standards that are too low to allow U.S. children to get into college or compete internationally."

        The AP (2/1, Quaid) reported that President Obama is proposing an NCLB overhaul, "replacing the school accountability system that has slapped a failing label on more than a third of schools, including many that made big gains but just missed their annual targets." According to the AP, President Obama's budget plan aims to "recognize and reward schools for helping kids make gains, even if they aren't yet on grade level."

        The Washington Post (2/2, Anderson) reports, "As legions of schools nationwide fall short of academic targets, the Obama administration proposed Monday to toss out the pass-fail measure that for 15 years has been the bedrock of the school accountability system and replace it with an index that would reward educators who prepare students for college and careers." Duncan "credited" NCLB "for exposing achievement gaps but said it has focused too much on reading and math and unfairly labeled many schools."

        The Christian Science Monitor (2/2, Paulson) reports, "Included in Monday's 2011 budget proposal were some significant - and controversial - shifts in federal education policy, even though a formal" NCLB reauthorization plan "has yet to be submitted. ... The administration would like to replace the annual yearly progress (AYP) benchmarks with new standards based on college and career readiness." Bloomberg News (2/1) reports that according to NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, "the largest U.S. teachers' union is 'very pleased' with the administration's planned changes to the law."

The Woodinville (WA) Northwest News (2/2, Stone) reports, "Lew Dickert, principal of Fernwood Elementary School in Bothell, was recently selected regional Distinguished Principal for the 2009-2010 school year by the East King Region of the Elementary School Principals Association of Washington (ESPAW)." Superintendent Larry Francois said that Dickert's "passion and dedication are as strong as ever." The third-year Fernwood principal "began his career in the Seattle Public Schools in 1978, where he taught special education for seven years before moving to a regular education classroom." Then, in 1988, Dickert "became an administrator."

Massachusetts' Herald News (2/2, Vital) reports that Bring Your Parents to School Day, a "monthly program" at Alfred S. Letourneau Elementary School in Fall River "allows parents to sit in on their children's classes," giving "them first-hand exposure to the lessons...being taught" to students. Times for the sit-in lessons "are staggered so that each month, the parents will get to see a different subject area covered." Fifth-Grade Teacher Lesley Froment said that in a typical month, about 12 parents sit in on one of her lessons.

California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (2/2, Leung) reports that this week, second-graders at Coyote Canyon Elementary School in Rancho Cucamonga "are scrutinizing and picking apart the elements of" fairy tales for a screen writing class. Opera Singer Ann Noriel "of Southland Opera, a nonprofit focused on music outreach, is leading a series of children-friendly courses on how to create a musical." The purpose of the lessons is to "teach music and story writing. ... The youngsters learn about setting and plot," for instance. At the end of all the lessons, students will take "a field trip to the Lewis Family Playhouse" to "watch a production of 'Cinderella.'"

Tennessee's Commercial Appeal (2/1) editorialized that the Tennessee Board of Education "has approved guidelines to teach the Bible in high schools, even though the feeling is the curriculum will be challenged in court as a constitutional violation of separation of church and state. State officials think the guidelines would survive a court challenge because they are a nonsectarian, nonreligious elective academic study." However, "human nature being what it is, the potential problem arises when an instructor intentionally or unintentionally crosses the line and starts teaching a Bible class as a Sunday school course."

The Washington Post (2/2, Chandler) reports, "Toting empty violin and trombone cases, Fairfax County [VA] students appeared at School Board hearings for three days last week to protest potential cuts to the instrumental music program in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. With their parents, teachers and a former music director for the U.S. Air Force Band, they said cuts would be academically, economically and personally detrimental." According to the Post, "As unprecedented cutbacks in school spending are being proposed across the Washington region, parents...have appealed to cash-strapped state and county officials for funds to protect the high-quality, well-rounded education they expect for their children.

WebMD (2/1, Boyles) reported that a new study led by John B. Jemmott III, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania found "an abstinence-only program to be as effective as safe-sex education or a combination approach and more effective than nothing at all for delaying the onset of sexual activity in preteens and young teens." The study involved sixth and seventh grade African-American students. "Two years after attending single-day sessions that focused on abstinence, safer sex, or both, about a third of the" students "who took part in the study reported having had sex." Meanwhile, "about half of the students who took part in a day-long health program in which sex was not discussed reported being sexually active two years later." WebMD notes that "the Obama administration eliminated federal funding for" abstinence-only education programs last spring. National Abstinence Education Association Director Valerie Huber said that "she hopes the new research will lead the administration to rethink the move."

The Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch (2/1, Meola) reported that a bill approved by the Virginia House of Delegates on Monday would require state districts to use "65 percent of their operating budgets [for] instructional spending," although the bill does not define instructional spending. The state Board of Education "would use a lengthy public input process to develop a definition." Under the bill, school districts would have to "report annually to the Board of Education the percentage of their operating budgets allocated to instructional spending." Districts that do not "meet the 65 percent threshold...would have to come up with a plan to increase the expenditure by .5 percent the next fiscal year."

The Huntington (WV) Herald-Dispatch (2/2, Rosenberger) reports that the Cabell County school district has been chosen to select two schools that will pilot West Virginia's "new state health initiative." Dee Cockrille, executive director for the Regional Educational Service Agency II, said that "after the schools are identified, a group of health stakeholders will be brought together to help establish support for the Coordinated School Health Program, which" begins in April. The health program consists of "health and physical education; nutrition, health, counseling and psychological services; healthy school environment; school staff wellness and family community involvement."

Abell Foundation President Robert C. Embry Jr. wrote in an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun (2/1), "While most proposals to improve public education are debatable, on one point there is universal agreement: A high-quality teacher offers a sure path to improving student achievement." However, "Maryland's teacher licensing rules remain among the most cumbersome in the nation," hampering the state's ability to attract the best teachers. Embry added, "Revising the Resident Teachers Certificate process and the teacher licensing process overall would also position Maryland as more competitive for federal Race to the Top funding aimed at improving teacher quality."

Susan Engel, director of the teaching program at Williams College, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times (2/2, A27), "It's great" that the Obama administration "is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself." According to Engel, "Our current educational approach - and the testing that is driving it - is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike. ... Our success depends on embracing a curriculum focused on essential skills like reading, writing, computation, pattern detection, conversation and collaboration - a curriculum designed to raise children, rather than test scores."

The Des Moines Register (2/1, Brasher) reported, "The White House is trying again to cut subsidies to the largest grain and cotton farmers while also proposing to slash payments to the crop insurance industry. The president's proposed 2011 budget would at the same time increase spending on school lunches and other child nutrition programs by $10 billion over 10 years - the equivalent amount of the cut in farm subsidies and crop insurance."

        Kim Severson wrote in a "Diner's Journal" blog for the New York Times (2/1) that President Obama's "budget proposal is getting mixed reviews among the people watching over the quality of public school lunches. Some say it's too little to make any meaningful change, while others are relieved school food programs are getting anything when other agricultural programs have been cut." According to Severson, Obama "is proposing an additional $1 billion a year for 10 years to be divided between school food programs and WIC, the program for low-income pregnant women, women who have recently given birth and children up to age 5."

The Atlanta Business Chronicle (2/2) reports that Atlanta Public Schools has received a "three-year, $10 million grant" from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation "to recruit and train top teachers." The money will go toward the district's "10-year-old 'Effective Teacher in Every Classroom (ETEC)' initiative, which has a stated goal of recruiting, preparing, placing and supporting effective instructors in every district." ETEC "has developed a teacher evaluation system based on student achievement, and the system is working to improve the abilities of principals to monitor teacher effectiveness."

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