Ranking Republican on Senate education panel says Obama plan doesn't work for rural schools

The ranking Republican senator on education policy has added his name to the growing list of people who think the Obama administration's plan to revamp the No Child Left BehindAct won't work for rural schools. Speaking at a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi voiced concern that the "four school turnaround models for schools identified for school improvement will adversely affect rural and frontier schools," Nick Anderson of The Washington Post reports. We most recently reported about the growing rural concerns regarding the administration's Blueprint for Reform last week.

"Let me be clear that I am not proposing to give rural and frontier schools a free pass," Enzi added. "Strategies mandated from Washington will simply not solve the problems facing these schools." Timothy Mitchell, superintendent of schools in Chamberlain, S.D., told the committee the plan needs "more flexibility for educators in remote hard-to-staff areas and less of a 'punitive accountability focus on firing staff and closing schools,'" Anderson writes. Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, the committee chairman, who also represents many rural areas, voiced no concerns about the plan during the hearing, Anderson notes. (Read more)