Support education, support jobs

This from David Adkisson in C-J:

Congress is scheduled to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As chairman of the U.S. Chamber's Education Committee, I will join Chamber President Tom Donahue and former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings this week in Washington to meet with congressional leaders and release the U.S. Chamber's recommendations for reform....

• High academic standards and assessments for all students. Each state should hold all students to the same challenging, relevant academic standards. States must continue annual assessments of every child in reading and math.
• Rigorous accountability for all schools. To ensure college and career readiness, we must maintain a strong accountability system that sets annual targets, a deadline for producing results, disaggregates results of different types of students and includes all students in all schools.
• Clear information and real choices for parents and students. Meaningful options, including charter schools, and clear information should be provided to all families, particularly those whose children are trapped in persistently low-performing schools.
• Recognize and reward effective teachers and principals. States should create systems to identify, develop and retain effective faculty who produce real gains in student achievement and in closing the achievement gap. These systems should determine decisions about tenure, compensation, rewards, equitable access to effective teachers and dismissal.
• Tenure policies often hamstring local officials' ability to ensure that students have access to the most effective teachers. Federal law should encourage, not inhibit, state and local efforts to make changes in these policies to quickly and fairly remove ineffective teachers who fail to improve.
• Taxpayer accountability and information. Federal education policy should encourage innovation and promote what works to improve student performance and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. This includes supporting data systems that inform decision-making at all levels by providing timely and accurate information to educators, parents, taxpayers and the public, and by supporting analysis and use of that data.