In announcing that he may provide regulatory relief, Duncan is not challenging Congressional authority. He and the President are challenging Congressional sluggishness as reauthorization of the ESEA is four years overdue and there is no end in sight.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is strangling our schools. On that fact, both Democrats and Republicans agree. Is that enough to ensure that Congress and the President will agree on terms to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as NCLB in this, the 112th Congress?

Why link common core standards to Title I funding? The answer is simple—the governors and state superintendents wanted the President to make this link, and raise the stakes to force state adoption of the standards with few or any changes.

Answers to the NCLB quiz – Democrats versus Republicans – who said what?

Who said bipartisanship in Washington was dead?

This president is deadly serious in his belief that high-quality education is the path to greater individual equity and our nation’s collective security.