Obama: Leave Bush school standards behind

WASHINGTON (AP) - Urging Congress to send him a new education law by fall, President Barack Obama focused Monday on the big concerns of parents and lawmakers alike: how student progress is measured and how schools that fall short are labeled.

Citing new estimates, Obama said four out of five schools may be tagged as failures this year under provisions of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law.

"That's an astonishing number," he said. "We know that four out of five schools in this country aren't failing. So what we're doing to measure success and failure is out of line."

Obama's call for a rewrite of the education law appears unlikely, at least by his September deadline. The House education committee's Republican chairman acknowledged the need for improvement but called the president's time line "arbitrary."

While the law enacted in 2002 under George W. Bush has become an easy political target, Obama acknowledged that it set the "right goals": educating all children, having a highly qualified teacher in every classroom, and highlighting the achievement gaps between rich and poor, white students and many minorities, and students with and without disabilities. But he said improvements are needed in measuring student progress and labeling schools that fall short.

He called for measuring creativity and critical thinking along with math and reading skills, and for rewarding good teachers while showing little leniency for bad ones.

"In the 21st century, it's not enough to leave no child behind," Obama said. "We need to help every child get ahead. We need to get every child on a path to academic excellence."

The Education Department estimated last week that the percentage of schools labeled as "failing" under the law could more than double this year, jumping from 37 percent to 82 percent as states boost standards to try to satisfy the law's mandates. The law set a goal of having all students proficient in math and reading by 2014, a standard now deemed unrealistic.

Schools that fail to meet yearly targets over time are labeled as needing improvement, a designation that upsets many parents who consider it an unfair stigma. Such schools often are described as failing, although the law itself does not use that term. Obama suggested it does, however, by repeatedly using the word "failing" to describe such schools during Monday's appearance at an Arlington, Va., middle school.