What Obama didn’t mention in his State of the Union speech

President  Obama gives his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. Vice Presient Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio listen. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Obama talked about a lot of things in his State of the Union message on Tuesday night, but what was striking was what he didn’t mention — at least in the education world.

The big debate at the moment in education centers around No Child Left Behind and how Congress, which is taking up a rewrite of the law, will address growing concerns about annual standardized testing that the law requires in Grades 3 – 8, and once in high school. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican from Tennessee who has taken over leadership of the Senate education committee, is holding his first hearing on NCLB on Wednesday.

The  implementation of the Common Core State Standards and Common Core testing is also a hot education topic, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to Obama.

Obama didn’t mention either NCLB or Common Core. Not a word.

He did push his new plan for the federal government to provide free tuition for students to attend two-year community colleges, and said he wants to make it easier for families to pay for high-quality child care. But he didn’t talk about his initiative to expand preschool, which Republicans don’t support.