This morning, the Obama administration released its blueprint to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In response, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, made the following statement.

This morning, in his weekly address to the nation, President Obama discussed his blueprint to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In response, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, made the following statement.

Today, MetLife released The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Collaborating for Student Success, which finds that only 36 percent of teachers and 51 percent of principals believe that all students have the ability to succeed academically. In response, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, made the following statement.

Gov Wise: “Zip codes are no way to educate America’s future workforce.”      This morning, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers released the first official public draft of the K–12 standards as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a process led by governors and chief state school officers from fifty-one states, territories, and the District of Columbia. In response, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia made the following statement.

To prepare students for success in life, the twenty-first-century American high school needs to shift its focus from preparing for college or career to achieving college and career readiness for every student. One of the most comprehensive efforts is the Linked Learning initiative in California (formerly known as “multiple pathways”), a reform model aimed at improving high schools by connecting strong academics, demanding technical education and real-world experience in a wide range of fields, such as engineering, arts and media, biomedicine and health. It provides multiyear programs of study that are rigorous, relevant, and directly connected to regional and state economic needs. By setting up students for success in the full array of options after high school, Linked Learning seeks to bridge the college-career divide that has long characterized the American education system. This brief details the Linked Learning movement in California, developed in response to poor and inequitable student outcomes, as it continues to garner interest and develop a growing base of evidence. The discussion lays out the rationale for the approach and the implications of this California-based effort for stakeholders seeking to address the national dropout crisis.

A new report, released jointly by the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Commission on No Child Left Behind, argues that, despite the promise of education reform efforts such as Race to the Top and the state-led common standards movement, improvement can only be sustained if Congress and the Administration update and improve the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

While the federal government and the states have implemented some promising education reform efforts in 2010, these efforts will have limited long-term impact and risk undermining accountability if they continue to be pursued without updating and improving the bedrock of federal education policy-the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, the current version of which is known as the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB). Only an ESEA reauthorization can address the aspects of NCLB that time, experience, and research have shown need to be significantly improved or updated. This report from the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind, Don't Leave Accountability Behind: A Call for ESEA Reauthorization, describes four distinct reasons ESEA reauthorization is necessary to support long-term reform and ensure strong accountability for student outcomes and improvement.

The United States is poised to make the most dramatic advance in assessment in decades. A state-led effort to develop common core standards in literacy and mathematics is defining what it means to be ready for colleges and careers, and this effort will invariably heighten the demand for assessments that measure a broader range of knowledge and skills and open the door for common assessment components across states. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Education is providing $350 million for consortia of states to develop new assessments that measure the common core standards. And a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will set guidelines for assessments and their use for years to come. This opportunity could not be more timely. There is widespread concern that the most prominent assessments currently being used in the United States are inadequate and may have a significantly negative impact on student learning. This brief suggests the principles upon which the federal government and states should base their work in fashioning new assessments. Recognizing that no single test can fulfill all the needs for information by all stakeholders, it suggests the need for a comprehensive system of assessments. Most importantly, the brief argues that this system needs to be coherent and cohesive, aligned to standards for college and career readiness.

Currently, K–12 education in the United States is dealing with three major crises, each of which on its own is capable of wreaking havoc on schools and communities around the nation, but together are an all-out perfect storm. Simultaneously, the U.S. education system is facing a growing workforce whose mounting needs for education and training will not be met by the nation’s current public education system; declining state fiscal revenues; and mounting teacher shortages, further crippling low-performing secondary schools. The time for merely rethinking and upgrading the role of technology in education has passed; policy decisions today must embrace a dramatic transformation of teaching and learning. Technology can no longer be thought of simply as an “add-on” tool in education, but rather an integral part of the total educational environment. This issue brief describes these looming crises and suggests ways that online learning can lead the U.S. education system out of them.

The Alliance for Excellent Education released a brief today that details how the integral use of online technology in today’s secondary school classrooms can strengthen the teacher workforce, improve student outcomes, and allow states to do more despite flat education budgets.