As the new Congress begins work in January 2011, “few areas are more suited for bipartisan action than education reform,” according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a letter published in the Washington Post on January 3, 2011.  In the letter, Secretary Duncan stated that bipartisan efforts to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), began in 2010.  He pointed out that Democrats and Republicans largely agree on several of the key components of the Obama administration’s Blueprint for Reform published in March 2010, including: 1) changing the way that student proficiency is measured to better reflect student growth and school progress; 2) increasing flexibility for schools, districts and states to implement the most effective local solutions for progress; 3) maintaining the NCLB requirement to disaggregate data to reflect achievement gaps by race, income, English language proficiency and disability; and 4) establishing a “real” definition of teacher effectives based on student growth, principal observation, peer review and other measures.  The Secretary stated that “the urgency for reform has never been greater” and “we all want to fix NCLB to better support reform at the state and local level.”

With state-of-the-art Web-based tools for student progress monitoring and professional consulting services, PCG Education continues to support state and local education reform efforts across the country.

About Patsy Crawford

Patsy Crawford, Director of Legal Services, PCG Education, has over 30 years of legal experience and is responsible for providing legal and regulatory compliance support to the PCG Education management team. Since joining the firm in 1997, Patsy has worked closely with school district administrators and PCG Education managers and consultants to coordinate with state and federal Medicaid agencies to protect and improve billing programs for school districts. She has provided direct legal support to PCG Education projects in multiple states across the country.

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