NCLB Plan Would Add New Rules

Spellings proposes changes on testing, tutoring, data

With Congress at a standstill in its work to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings last week launched her latest and most extensive administrative effort to alter the law.

In the most comprehensive and final in a series of actions intended to change how the law is carried out, Ms. Spellings formally proposed a package of new regulations that would require state and local school officials to provide more and better information about high school graduation rates, student test performance, and the availability and quality of tutoring under the federal law.

She described the new policy tools as “bulldozers” designed to “tear down barriers to reform” when she announced them April 22 at...