I will paraphrase Mark Twain and admit that the death of No Child Left Behind might “be greatly exaggerated,” but the most odious provisions of the law are in the process of being dropped. President Obama has announced that he hopes to simultaneously raise standards of college- and career-readiness for students, and eliminate the standard of Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, that has been the bane of schools and teachers for the past eight years.

So NCLB may still be alive, but AYP is dead. No one who has been held accountable for student scores during the past eight years is mourning at the grave site. Governors, mayors, principals and teachers have watched with horror as many of their schools have been labeled “failing” when they did not meet the increasingly ambitious AYP. Currently 28 percent of Virginia’s schools and 23 percent of Maryland’s schools are in that position.