Dell expects teachers and administrators to adopt the Streak, which sports a five-inch touch-screen, front and back-facing cameras, quick access to Google services and a calling application.

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And he is willing to use federal handouts as an enticement to states to adopt more exacting evaluation schemes for teachers, a tactic often attacked by conservatives.

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States can decide whether to adopt the standards, but demand from students, teachers and corporate America makes Wheeler optimistic for the future of hands-on, "really unplugged" science, as Perez put it.

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Strings were attached to the money: states had to adopt certain standards and find innovative ways of improving recruitment, rewarding teachers, promoting charters and turning round the lowest-performing schools.

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With a Republican legislature, Mr Bush instead made Florida the only state to adopt an entire bundle of reforms simultaneously, in the teeth of the teachers' unions.

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New York is one of dozens of states moving to adopt new evaluation systems, though there is no consensus on how best to evaluate teachers.

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