U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan signaled last week that the Department of Education is poised to launch reauthorization efforts for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He used a packed meeting of key stakeholders here to underline his likely priorities and stress his sense of urgency.

The new version of the law, he said, will need to ensure effective teachers and principals for underperforming schools, expand learning time, and devise an accountability system that measures individual student progress and uses data to inform instruction and teacher evaluation. Mr. Duncan repeated his assertion, made in a number of speeches since he took office this year, that the federal government “should be tight on the goals—with clear standards set by states that truly prepare young people for college and careers—but loose on the means for meeting those goals.”

And the secretary assured more than 200 representatives from education associations, think tanks, and community groups at the Sept. 24 meeting that his administration would be attentive to their concerns during the reauthorization process.

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