Update: Sherman, you know how  to make a girl blush! 

Ed Daily($) reports that Cong. Miller may be reconsidering the 2014 deadline for all students to reach 100 percent proficiency.  Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Foundation gives credit to Ed Trust for opening up this possibility.  In its August 29th press release on Title I of the Miller-McKeon discussion draft, the Ed Trust's Amy Wilkins said:

The 2013-14 deadline for proficiency is a powerful disincentive to raising standards. If we are going to ask states – and students – to climb a higher mountain, we need to give them more time to get there . . ."

Like Petrilli, I was struck by this shift in position, that Ed Trust had let go of this "bright line." I would also agree that it is very important to Miller that any proposal to shift the deadline pass the EdTrust/Kati Haycock "sniff test." At the same time, Miller had expressed doubts about the deadline as early as January 2006 when, in this NPR story, he said:

Will we have a hundred percent of our children proficient in 2014? Not very likely. Should that be the goal of this nation? Probably so if you really believe in the dignity and the worth of each of these children.

And, as both Jack Jennings and the AFT's Toni Cortese point out in the Ed Daily article, if Miller wants states to be able to use real growth models, he will have to rethink the proficiency deadline.