Over at Wired, the Geek Dad talks about Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s plans for the future of No Child Left Behind. 

The Obama administration plans on, first off, changing the name, “as the current one ‘has become toxic.’”

I hope they take seriously the challenge of “rewarding the best teachers, supporting good ones with room for improvement, and — there’s really no way to put it nicely — getting rid of those who simply shouldn’t be teaching.”

Something that I’ve been looking at for a while, is the idea of “few[er] kids need[ing] the summer off to help with the farm.”  Reassessing the need for summer breaks and the hours of the school day would be a great start.

One thing I didn’t see any mention of is technology integration.  If we are going to be giving kids skills to be competitive in a world market, we need to rethink that major aspect of our curriculum.

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Via the Chicago Sun-Times:

“President Barack Obama on Tuesday embraced a new approach to education that would reward good teachers, remove limits on charter schools and lengthen both the school day and the school year.”

I applaud the President’s strong stance in reforming a failing education system. However, I question what rights the federal government – let alone the Executive branch – is given by the Constitution to meddle in state’s affairs.

And for those of you who wonder – I feel the same way about No Child Left Behind, too.