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Doug Mills/The New York Times President Obama signed an electronic “white board” as he met with music students at a school in Arlington, Va.

2:22 p.m. | Updated President Obama called on Congress to revamp the “No Child Left Behind” education law by the time students start a new school year in September, urging lawmakers to “seize this education moment.”

Mr. Obama made the remarks on Monday at a school in Virginia, using the backdrop of a classroom to urge changes to a law that Democrats and Republicans agree is broken.

“I want every child in the country to head back to school in the fall knowing that their education is America’s priority,” the president said. “The goals of No Child Left Behind were the right goals. But what hasn’t worked is denying teachers, schools and states what they need to meet these goals.”

Mr. Obama last week met with lawmakers from both parties in an attempt to jump-start the debate over reauthorizing the law, known officially as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Enacted in 2002, it was one of President George W. Bush’s signature pieces of legislation.

But while both sides agree that the existing law needs and overhaul, there are differences over what needs to be done. Democrats have generally favored greater investment in schools while conservatives have pushed for more local control over decisions.

Unions have also complained about the president’s push for connecting teacher pay to judgments about classroom performance.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama called for changes to the education law that would push more control to local and state governments, improve the quality of testing, demand increased standards and increase accountability by principals.

In the face of an ongoing budget dispute with Republicans, Mr. Obama also said efforts to remake the law must be supported by the funding necessary to make it work.

“A budget that sacrifices our commitment to education would be a budget that’s sacrificing our country’s future. That would be a budget that sacrifices our children’s future. And I will not let it happen,” Mr. Obama said. “So yes, I’m determined to cut our deficits, but I refuse to do it by telling students here, who are so full of promise, that we’re not willing to invest in your future.”

UPDATE: Representative John Kline ,the chairman of the House education committee, said in a statement Monday that “the president’s remarks affirm the importance of fixing the nation’s broken education system. As we develop targeted, fiscally responsible reforms, the Committee on Education and the Workforce continues to work with school officials and state and local leaders to learn about the tools they need to prepare students for the future. We need to take the time to get this right – we cannot allow an arbitrary timeline to undermine quality reforms that encourage innovation, flexibility, and parental involvement.”

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Senator John Ensign’s announcement this week that he is retiring has brought little solace to his chief accuser, Doug Hampton, the husband of Mr. Ensign’s former mistress.

Mr. Hampton, breaking a long period of public silence as the various investigations of Mr. Ensign have dragged on, put out a statement Wednesday calling on Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada, to resign immediately from the Senate, instead of waiting for his term to expire in 2012.

“I continue to be extremely disappointed by John’s callousness and lack of remorse for destroying my family and life,” Mr. Hampton wrote in his statement. “His selfish, steadfast refusal to resign immediately prolongs the pain and anguish he caused.”

Mr. Hampton, a former senior aide to Mr. Ensign and one-time close family friend of the senator, largely forced Mr. Ensign’s public admission in June 2009 that he had an affair with Cindy Hampton, Mr. Hampton’s wife, who had served as a treasurer of one of his political fund-raising groups.

Senate ethics investigators have been examining if Mr. Ensign violated Senate rules by helping Mr. Hampton get work as a lobbyist immediately after he left the Senate in 2008, work that would have been illegal because Mr. Hampton then turned to Mr. Ensign’s office to help his clients, despite a one-year ban on such contact.

The Department of Justice also investigated the role Mr. Ensign played in helping Mr. Hampton get lobbying work, but Mr. Ensign’s lawyers announced in December that no criminal charges would be filed against the senator.

Daniel J. Albreghts, a lawyer for Mr. Hampton, said it is unclear if Mr. Hampton is still himself the subject of a criminal investigation, given his public admission and email records that show that Mr. Hampton had contacted Mr. Ensign’s office during the one year ban—a move Mr. Hampton has said he took at the senator’s urging.

As recently as January, even after the announcement by Mr. Ensign’s lawyers, Justice Department officials had told Mr. Albreghts that the investigation was ongoing. But he said he had not heard from them since.

Mr. Hampton made clear in his statement that, at a minimum, he continues to play a role in the separate Senate investigation of Mr. Ensign, including being asked to come to Washington to speak with Senate investigators. Senate officials have said that this inquiry will continue as long as Mr. Ensign remains in office, as the Senate Ethics Committee only has jurisdiction over sitting members.

Mr. Hampton, in his statement, said Mr. Ensign must know that he could effectively terminate this inquiry by resigning.

“The cost to the taxpayers of this fruitless exercise flies in the face of John’s claim of being fiscally conservative and a protector of the taxpayer’s money,” Mr. Hampton’s statement said, continuing, “much like his affair with my wife flew in the face of his claim to moral righteousness.”

Mr. Hampton lost his Nevada home and moved back to southern California, Mr. Albreghts said.

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Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, accused President Obama of being “cavalier” when it comes to the loss of jobs in America and of not understanding how to improve the economy.

The comments by Mr, Romney, a likely candidate for president in 2012, were his sharpest yet as he positions himself to take on Mr. Obama. Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday night, Mr. Romney panned the president’s State of the Union address.

“He’s trying awfully hard,” Mr. Romney said. “The problem is, he just doesn’t know what to do.”

A millionaire who has promoted his business experience as the basis for his political appeal, Mr. Romney called the president’s speech “sad” and said it exposed “the biggest reality gap that we’ve seen in a long time with the president.”

Mr. Romney, who was defeated by Senator John McCain of Arizona for the Republican nomination in 2008, is widely expected to announce that he is running for president again.

He declined to confirm that to Mr. Hannity, but said it would be “helpful if at least one of the people who’s running in the Republican field have experience in the private sector, in small business, in big business working with the economy.”

Asked when he would announce his intentions, Mr. Romney said, “We’re looking at different dates for making that decision.”

And after offering his harsh criticisms of the president, Mr. Romney added, “We’re doing what we need to to keep in the public eye.”

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Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse —
Getty Images President Hu Jintao of China met with Henry Kissinger, a former secretary of state, at a luncheon for American business and foreign-relations organizations on Thursday.

President Hu Jintao of China called for closer cooperation with the United States in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim in a speech on Thursday, offering an olive branch in a region where China’s increasing influence and military presence have roiled relations between the two powers.

Speaking to leaders of American business and foreign-relations organizations in Washington, Mr. Hu said that the Pacific Rim was where Washington and Beijing had the greatest range of overlapping interests, and he called closer coordination of American and Chinese activities there “crucial to the regional situation and our bilateral relations.”

“We should stay committed to promoting peace, stability and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said, “and turn the Asia-Pacific into an important region where China and the United States work closely with each other on the basis of mutual respect.”

China’s territorial disputes with several nations in the region, including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, grew more fractious last year, prompting many of the region’s governments to ask the United States to step up its military and political involvement there.

The American response — an offer to mediate the disputes, and a blunt statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the need for states in the regional states to retain their independence — in turn angered the Chinese military and some leaders in Beijing, who saw the moves as intended to check China’s growing influence.

Mr. Hu’s speech was laced with calls for China and the United States to cooperate and coordinate their actions on many global issues, from the Doha round of world trade negotiations to climate change and energy-conservation initiatives. He also called for a sustained effort to improve bilateral relations with more cultural, business and student exchanges, closer military cooperation and more joint projects in agriculture, space exploration, energy and other fields.

“The development of China-United States relations in the final analysis hinges on the broad support and active involvement of people from all walks of life in both countries,” he said.

With a broader dialogue involving every facet of both societies, he said, “more and more people will become supporters of stronger China-United States relations and get actively involved in this worthy cause.”

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Drew Angerer/The New York Times On his trip to North Carolina, President Obama toured Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – President Obama called for another “Sputnik moment” on Monday by having the nation invest more in education and science, previewing a theme that is likely to be part of his agenda and his budget for the second half of his term.

Mr. Obama, who made his remarks during a visit to a community college here, was not yet born when the Soviets’ launch of the Sputnik orbiter in 1957 shocked Americans and  prompted a national commitment to education, space and science spending. “Fifty years later, our nation’s Sputnik moment is back,“ Mr. Obama said.

His goal, he said, is to increase education and science spending to 3 percent of the size of the economy, a significant increase from current levels. Mr. Obama also acknowledged the need to reduce the long-term debt, just days after his fiscal commission proposed a $4 trillion, 10-year package of spending cuts and tax increases, and he said the two parties would debate the nation’s spending priorities next year and years beyond.

But, he added, “we cannot cut back on those investments that have the biggest impact on our economic growth” – like educating the workers of the future to compete globally.

Also mindful of the fiscal debates back in Washington, Mr. Obama said — to applause from a friendly audience — that he would not sign an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for high incomes unless Republicans agree to extend both federal unemployment assistance to Americans who have been out of jobs for long periods and several expiring tax breaks for lower-income workers.

He predicted that the two-party talks would yield an agreement soon, “even if it’s not 100 percent of what I want or what Republicans want.”

On the flight to North Carolina, a swing state that Mr. Obama won in 2008 but where his popularity has slid, as in many states, the deputy press secretary, Bill Burton, told reporters that the negotiators have made enough progress that Mr. Obama is confident of reaching a compromise within the next couple days. Both sides say any deal will most likely include a temporary extension of all the rates and of jobless aid.

The Republicans have long demanded that all the Bush-era rates be extended permanently, while Mr. Obama has said since his presidential campaign that he favors extending the rates on taxable income below $250,000 for couples filing jointly and $200,000 for individuals. But he and Congressional Democrats never settled on a strategy or specific legislation, and the combination of a continued weak economy and Republicans’ midterm election fortunes have increased their leverage.

Less than a month before the rates are set to expire and revert to pre-2001 levels, Mr. Obama on Saturday publicly outlined for the first time his conditions for agreeing to extend the tax rates benefiting the richest Americans. He said he would only do so temporarily, and only if Republicans agreed to extend unemployment compensation and other expiring tax breaks for low-wage and middle-income people.

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Representative Maxine Waters, who has been under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegations that she helped steer government money to a bank in which her husband owned shares, is asking for an investigation into the committee that has been investigating her.

On Tuesday, Ms. Waters, a California Democrat, said she would introduce a resolution calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to appoint a bipartisan task force to investigate the ethics panel’s decision last month to place two of its lawyers on paid administrative leave. On Nov. 19, the day the committee announced it was delaying Ms. Waters’s trial, it also placed Cindy Morgan Kim, the committee’s deputy chief counsel who was leading the investigation, and Stacy Sovereign, a committee lawyer, on indefinite leave for reported problems with their handling of the case against Ms. Waters.

The resolution warns that the delay in Ms. Waters’s trial violates her “due process rights and the rules of the committee,” and says that the committee’s handling of the situation has subjected it to “public ridicule” and served to “unjustly impugn the integrity” of Ms. Waters.

Ms. Waters has consistently denied any wrongdoing and used the delays in her hearing to go on the offensive, questioning the ethics process.

“Whereas all of these actions have subjected the committee to public ridicule, produced contempt for the ethics process, created the public perception that the committee’s purpose was to unjustly impugn the integrity of a member of the House, and weakened the ability of the committee to properly conduct its investigative duties, all of which has brought discredit to the House,” reads one clause in her resolution.

After the resolution is introduced, the House has two days in which to pick it up, and members would vote at the end of the debate as to whether or not they want Ms. Pelosi to appoint an investigative task force, which would need to release its findings before the current Congress ends.

Ms. Waters’s office deliberately mirrored its resolution after a similar one introduced by Ms. Pelosi, then the House minority leader, in 2005, which called for an investigation into a shake-up of the committee’s staff after the panel rebuked Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, who was then the House majority leader.

The panel originally referred Ms. Waters’s case back to the investigative subcommittee after a new exchange of e-mails surfaced between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which she serves. But the disclosure earlier this month that the House ethics committee had suspended two of its lawyers prompted Ms. Waters to further question the ethics process and introduce Tuesday’s resolution.

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