ESEA Renewal May See New Momentum

“We also have to win the race to educate our kids,” the president declared in his State of the Union address. In his Jan. 25 speech to Congress, President Barack Obama also said the federal No Child Left Behind Act should be replaced by a more flexible approach.

—Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg/Getty Images

By Alyson Klein

Washington

Education leaders in Congress are signaling that they’re prepared to collaborate with the White House on a long-stalled reauthorization of the main federal law for K-12 education, after President Barack Obama sought to move education back to the top of the national agenda in his State of the Union address last week.

Precollegiate policy is widely seen as one of the few areas in which the politically divided Congress can cooperate with the Obama administration. White House backing is considered crucial to building and sustaining momentum for a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which numerous observers have argued is in serious need of revision. Its current version, the No Child Left Behind Act, became law in 2002.

Key lawmakers acknowledged last week that enacting legislation to reauthorize the ESEA would be tricky, but said they were...