As the clock ticks toward President Barack Obama's back-to-school deadline for rewriting the No Child Left Behind Act, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is preparing to grant states relief from key provisions of the federal school accountability law in exchange for what he calls "commitments to key reforms." The move comes as pressure mounts for Mr. Duncan to give more flexibility to states and districts nervously eyeing the law's 2014 deadline for ensuring all students are "proficient" in reading and math. The secretary gave very few details on what relief from NCLB would look like, or what he would ask states to do in exchange. The Department of Education's options include issuing waivers of provisions in the law, re-regulating parts of it, or creating pilot programs such as the one initiated by Mr. Duncan's predecessor that allowed states to create growth models to measure student achievement for accountability purposes.