Proposed Title I Changes Ease Tutoring Rules

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced plans last week to lift a ban on allowing underperforming school districts to serve as tutoring providers under the No Child Left Behind Act, and to grant reprieves from a school-choice-notification requirement issued last fall.

The proposed changes, outlined in an April 1 letter to state schools chiefs, also would relieve states of a requirement to update their “accountability workbooks,” the blueprints each state must submit to the Education Department when they propose or revise the ways they intend to carry out NCLB mandates.

Two of the provisions Mr. Duncan wants to change were in regulations issued last October by...