Vox Sentences: No Child Left Behind gets...left behind

Obama signs a major bipartisan education bill; your guide to the case in Serial's season 2; and two of America's biggest chemicals companies are merging.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

The Every Student Succeeds Act

Tim Sloan/AFP via Getty Images

• President Obama signed a major bipartisan education bill today: the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaces No Child Left Behind.

  [NPR / Cory Turner]

• ESSA essentially keeps the testing requirements from NCLB, but gets rid of the accountability measures the federal government had to try to get failing schools to turn around.

  [Education Week / Alyson Klein]

• The accountability measures didn't really work that well, as Vox's Libby Nelson has explained, but returning accountability to the states could result in some states relaxing standards too much.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Some supporters of school reform — like the Bloomberg View editorial board — see ESSA as a huge setback, and a reversal of Obama's first-term education policy (defined by the Race to the Top grants for high-performing schools).

  [Bloomberg View ]

• It also comes at a crucial time for the Democratic Party, as teachers' unions — the biggest political group opposed to NCLB-style accountability measures — have endorsed Hillary Clinton in a bid to remain relevant within the party.

  [US News / Lauren Camera]

The case of Bowe Bergdahl

U.S. Army/Getty Images

• The wildly popular podcast Serial launched its second season today. It will be covering the case of former Army private Bowe Bergdahl.

  [Serial]

• Bergdahl was a prisoner of war under the Taliban in Afghanistan for five years, and was returned in 2014 in exchange for 5 Taliban prisoners.

  [NBC News / Jim Miklaszewski]

• As it turned out, however, the Taliban didn't capture Bergdahl while he was out on patrol — as the Army had said — but rather after he had wandered off the base.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The Army has since charged him with desertion — and with endangering the lives of his fellow soldiers, who spent months searching for him.

  [NPR / Wade Goodwyn]

• An army general is currently deciding whether to bring Bergdahl before a court martial, although his would-be prosecutor and judge agree he wouldn't go to jail.

  [NYT / Richard A. Oppel, Jr.]

• All of these facts are pretty well established, and Serial won't be about whether Bergdahl is guilty. It's instead planning to focus on "bigger questions" — like why he left to begin with.

  [The New Yorker / Sarah Paulson]

DowPont

Bryan Thomas/Getty Images

• Dow and DuPont, two of biggest chemicals companies, have announced they plan to merge...

  [Fortune / Steven Gandel]

• ...and subsequently split up into three different companies focusing on plastics; agriculture; and other products.

  [C&EN / Alexander H. Tullo]

• Both companies have been struggling, and activist investors (read: hedge funds) were pushing for a merger to cut costs.

  [Forbes / Daniel Fisher]

• Agriculture, in particular, has it rough. Crop prices in the US are low, but the strong dollar makes exports relatively expensive to consumers abroad.

  [Wall Street Journal / Jacob Bunge, Shayndi Raice and Eyk Henning]

• As you might expect, though, there are serious antitrust concerns. The US government is expected to look very closely at the merger.

  [Reuters / Diane Bartz and Karl Plume]

• Some analysts believe it might work out — largely because they claim that once you look at individual products, there aren't too many that both Dow and DuPont sell in competition with each other.

  [Wall Street Journal / Jacob Bunge and Brent Kendall]

MISCELLANEOUS

Last year, about 30 men in Liberia were tasked with burning the corpses of Ebola victims to prevent the virus from spreading. But cremation is so taboo that now the men are ostracized for helping save lives. [NYT / Helene Cooper]

• Uruguay gets 94.5 percent of its electricity, and 55 percent of its energy, from renewable sources now.

  [NYT / Helene Cooper]

• San Francisco's leading pro-housing lobby is trying a new tactic: suing municipalities to block low-density building.

  [Bloomberg / Patrick Clark]

• They're also connected to the dorkiest and greatest board game I've heard of in a while: "Bay Area Regional Planner."

  [CityLab / Kriston Capps]

• Uruguay gets 94.5 percent of its electricity, and 55 percent of its energy, from renewable sources now.

  [The Guardian / Jonathan Watts]

• One sign of rising inequality: the middle class is no longer the majority in the US.

  [NPR / Marilyn Geewax]

VERBATIM

"Athletes who ingest three teaspoons of [Rio de Janeiro] water have a 99 percent chance of being infected by viruses." [AP / Brad Brooks]

• "There are coalitions and I'm talking about now like Hispanic coalitions that … will not support Trump. And that's OK because the ones that don't like Trump aren't even here legally and they can't vote, so it doesn't really matter, right?

  [Donald Trump adviser Michael Cohen to Yahoo / Hunter Walker]

• "I used to be a young person until about a year ago, but now I’ve decided I’m pretty old."

  [Marty Weil to Washington Post / Joe Heim]

• "Icelanders opposed to the state funding of religion have flocked to register as Zuists, a movement that worships ancient Sumerian gods and — perhaps more importantly — promises its followers a tax rebate."

  [The Guardian / Harriet Sherwood]

• ""I like it when things sound like a screaming animal. That's always a good thing."

  [MØ to BBC / Mark Savage]

WATCH THIS

Re-reading is inefficient. Here are 5 tips for studying smarter. [YouTube / Joe Posner and Liz Scheltens]

Vox / Joe Posner and Liz Scheltens