Senate Panel Skirts Title I, Standards Link in Weighing ESEA Renewal

Lawmakers on a Senate panel charged with renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act continue to express broad agreement that a state-led initiative aimed at developing more rigorous and uniform academic standards is headed in the right direction.

But senators so far have largely sidestepped some of the trickier issues in renewing the ESEA, the current version of which is the No Child Left Behind Act that was signed into law in 2002.

For instance, during a more than two-hour hearing recently on standards and assessments, not one lawmaker mentioned the Obama administration’s proposal to tie together standards and Title I funding for disadvantaged students—suggesting that the panel may not be...