Bush Offers ‘Blueprint’ for NCLB

Partisan split expected as strategies diverge.

Washington

With the release last week of the Bush administration’s blueprint for changes to its signature education program, it’s clear that Republicans and Democrats agree that the priority should be improving the nation’s lowest-achieving schools.

How to do that, though, will be the subject of partisan debate.

In its plans for the No Child Left Behind Act, unveiled the day after President Bush’s State of the Union address, the administration said it wants private and charter schools to create competition that would spur improvement in substandard schools. It also wants the NCLB law to give district leaders the authority to circumvent collective bargaining agreements so they can assign their best...