Today, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) director of education policy studies Rick Hess, along with Raegen Miller and Cindy Brown of the Center for American Progress, released recommendations for fixing key provisions of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--federal funding targeted at our nation’s neediest students.

These recommended changes to Title I--a key provision of No Child Left Behind--could make significant improvements when it comes to what goes on in America’s schools and school systems day-to-day.

The American Action Forum and American Enterprise Institute invite you to participate in a conversation on accountability as it relates to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Every serious study of U.S. infrastructure has reached the same conclusion: More investment is needed -- and fast. But with Sen. Jeff Bingaman's amendment to the highway reauthorization bill, the Senate effectively penalizes states for using innovative infrastructure financing.

Export-related jobs are a huge and important driver of the U.S. economy, and the record of the Ex-Im Bank is clear: Using private funds and with minimal exposure to taxpayers, it has been a major driver of U.S. exports and a driver of jobs and corporate profits in the United States.

At the heart of the debate over renewing No Child Left Behind, the nation’s education reform act which is overdue for reauthorization, is the question: what is the role of the federal government in K-12 education? Though the law was initiated and signed by a Republican president, presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, who once supported it, now talk about getting the federal government out of education. Democratic reformers, meanwhile, insist that the federal government has a role in telling states how to identify, punish and fix low-performing schools — despite little evidence that Washington has been good at any of these tasks.  Over the last decade, AEI Education has been exploring these concerns.

With the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization looming and Washington’s eyes focused on school turnarounds and the Common Core State Standards, we must listen to the voices of dynamic leaders tackling the challenge of high-quality literacy instruction in the nation’s school districts.

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