The Filter: Obama Tackles 'No Child Left Behind'

(March 15) -- With so many news aggregators out there, who can keep up? AOL News filters the filters to steer you to the headlines that really matter.

Skip Those, Read This: The Slatest leads with an Associated Press report on the Obama administration's attempt to get Israel to refrain from building 1,600 new homes in disputed east Jerusalem. Israel announced the plans last week during Vice President Joe Biden's recent visit. The plan, decried by Palestinians and even many Israelis, is widely seen as a blow to restarting the peace process and a sign that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains committed to settlement building. Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper runs an op-ed by an Israeli academic that examines the broader implications for the peace process.

Rogue Spies? The Huffington Post leads with a New York Times investigation that uncovers a Defense Department official's alleged "off-the-books spy operation" to help track and kill militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The official, Michael Furlong, "hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces operatives," the Times reports. It said it's likely illegal for the military to hire contractors as spies, and it remains unclear how the operation was funded, or who authorized it. The operation has been shut down and the Defense Department is investigating.

Enough Votes? The Daily Beast keeps its attention on the ongoing push for health care reform and leads with a Washington Post report that the Democrats lack the votes in the House to pass a bill. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., says Democrats still don't have the 216 votes they need, but, along with other Democrats in Congress and the White House, believes they'll reach that number soon. After months of uncertainty, the House will likely vote on it this week.

Catch of the Day: Rielle Hunter, John Edwards' mistress, is finally telling her side of the story. The Daily Beast picks up a Washington Post story that sums up a 10,000-word interview that GQ landed with Hunter. You can check out the whole GQ interview here. Hunter disputes many accounts of their relationship -- they first spoke on a street corner, not New York's Regency hotel, she says. Hunter also says that they slept together on the day they met and that Edwards' relationship with his wife Elizabeth (the two are now separated) was "toxic" long before Hunter entered the scene. She disputes descriptions by former Edwards' staffers that she's a "gold-digger" or hippy, but blames astrology for Edward's campaign difficulties during the Democratic presidential primary.

Obama Tackles Education: With his young presidency's main policy initiative, health care reform, in limbo, President Barack Obama is now looking to overhaul his predecessor's No Child Left Behind Law, reports The New York Times (via The Slatest). The Bush federal law, which affected more than 100,000 public schools, "encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing," the Times reports. The proposed changes, which Obama will unveil to Congress today, would include other variables besides test scores to assess schools' progress, give individual schools more control over their curricula and "replace the law's requirement that every American child reach proficiency in reading and math, which administration officials have called utopian." Obama's education officials believe that No Child Left Behind encouraged teachers to dumb down their standards.