Obamas K-12 Plan: President Obama has advanced reforms around four key objectives:

Higher standards and better assessments that will prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace Ambitious efforts to recruit, prepare, develop, and advance effective teachers and principals, especially in the classrooms where they are most needed Smarter data systems to measure student growth and success, and help educators improve instruction New attention and a national effort to turn around our lowest-achieving schools. Since taking office, the Obama Administration has designed and implemented several initiatives to strengthen public education for students in every community nationwide

1. Keeping teachers in the classroom: Build a world class education system by keeping teachers in class. President Obama Proposes Additional Funding for Education Jobs: In 2011, the President put forward a planas part of the American Jobs Act to provide support for hundreds of thousands of education jobs, enough for states to avoid harmful layoffs, rehire teachers who lost their jobs over the past three years, preserve or extend the regular school day and school year, and support important after-school activities. President Obama proposes a $25 billion investment in the coming year to make sure we can keep teachers in the classroom 2. Race to the top: This initiative offers bold incentives to states willing to spur systemic reform to improve teaching and learning in Americas schools. To date, President Obamas Race to the Top initiative has dedicated over $4 billion to 19 states that have created robust plans that address the four key areas of K-12 education reform as described below. These states serve 22 million students and employ 1.5 million teachers in 42,000 schools, representing 45 percent of all K-12 students and 42 percent of all low-income students nationwide. The four key areas of reform include: Development of rigorous standards and better assessments Adoption of better data systems to provide schools, teachers, and parents with information about student progress Support for teachers and school leaders to become more effective Increased emphasis and resources for the rigorous interventions needed to turn around the lowest-performing schools

3. Reforming No Child Left Behind: As states move forward with education reforms, some provisions of No Child Left Behindthe most current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Actstand in the way of their progress. Although NCLB started a national conversation about student achievement, unintended consequences of NCLB have reinforced the wrong behaviors in attempting to strengthen public education. NCLB has created incentives for states to lower their standards; emphasized punishing failure

over rewarding success; focused on absolute scores, rather than recognizing growth and progress; and prescribed a pass-fail, one-size-fits-all series of interventions for schools that miss their goals.