Tougher Education Standards?

From the "be careful what you wish for" department:

But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools.

It will be interesting to see how the President and his team plan to "toughen" requirements on teacher quality, and how his most vocal, strident supporters (teachers unions) will respond to that.

I'm encouraged by the following:

The law’s testing requirements may evolve but will certainly not disappear.

As I've written before, I have a colleague who seems sincere in her belief that the original intent of NCLB was to destroy public education--all evidence notwithstanding. If this President and Congress only fiddle with the law instead of killing it altogether, I wonder if she'll be forced to reassess her views on the subject.