If you're a finalist for a Race to the Top grant in Round 1 of the competition, then the week of March 15 is when your state team will have to come to Washington, D.C. and make your in-person pitch to the peer reviewers.
This nugget of information, plus' [...]
Being the federal education policy nerd that I am, I'm wading through a 367-page transcript of the technical assistance planning seminar the U.S. Department of Education held in Denver to help states understand the Race to the Top competition.
Since I attended a similar seminar in Baltimore, many of' [...]
With the Race to the Top deadline just around the corner, education policy wonks are already sizing up the competition to figure out who's already in the lead, and who isn't.
Vegas odds probably aren't favoring these 14 states, which didn't meet the Gates Foundation's litmus test' [...]
Don't call it a second stimulus, but House Democratic leaders introduced a bill yesterday that's meant to help jump-start the still-sluggish economy, but includes some new money for K-12 education (although nothing on the scale of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed last winter).
The bill includes a $23' [...]
Some state officials have a sneaking suspicion that Race to the Top is an urban state's game and that has made some question whether they should apply, at least in Round 1.
For instance, Vermont had originally planned to apply for Round 1 of the competition, but is now going [...]
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education released a list of 36 states that plan to apply for Race to the Top Fund grants in Round 1. I blogged about this, making clear that the department's list wasn't necessarily the final word on Round 1 applicants for the' [...]
Congress has now given final approval to the long-delayed education spending bill for fiscal year 2010. If you leave out the stimulus, there was basically flat funding for most education programs, plus a huge boost for some Obama administration priorities. (School districts that want to try out merit [...]
After listening to the second half of the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top technical seminar, it's clear that there are many, many state-specific circumstances for which state teams want answers. South Dakota asked if Indian-chartered schools count as charter schools. Hawaii officials had a few questions [...]
I spent the morning in a U.S. Department of Education technical-assistance planning seminar on Race to the Top, and have picked up a lot of interesting tidbits. Many states are in attendance—including Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Tennessee (including education commissioner Tim Webb), just to name [...]
Remember that long-delayed fiscal year 2010 spending bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives, and by the Senate Appropriations Committee, both in July?
The measure was never considered by the full Senate, but December is crunch time, so a House and Senate conference committee decided to skip [...]
I'm sure you've heard by now that many states are still having to lay off teachers and cut programs, despite $48.6 billion in aid to help shore up state budgets in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Well, there may be more federal relief coming down the pike.
Congressional [...]
He only wrote once for Politics K-12 that I can dig up, but Sean Cavanagh's departure from Education Week is a big loss. He may have been the newspaper's specialist in covering math and science, and its prolific Curriculum Matters blogger, but he had a knack [...]
Earlier this year, the House Committee on Education and Labor held a hearing on the common standards effort being led by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, during which members from both parties basically agreed that: a) common academic standards could be [...]
Is the Education Department basing its turnaround strategy more on a hunch, rather than on research? Read Catherine Gewertz's very interesting post about the issue of turning around low-performing schools.
For even more insight into turnaround models, tune in to edweek.org on Thursday, from 2 p.m. [...]
As January approaches, education organizations in Washington are starting to lay the groundwork for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, whose current version is the No Child Left Behind law. And that includes the contingent of Democrats who are skeptical of standardized testing.
One of the groups on [...]
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott surely has not won his state any bonus points in the Race to the Top competition.
He's charging that the Obama Administration's efforts to support the state-led creation of common standards is nothing more than a desire for a "federal takeover" of public schools. [...]
The U.S. Department of Education put out the final version of the regulations on the School Improvement Grants. And even though there were 180 comments filed on the draft regulations, not much has changed, or at least not substantially.
If you'll remember, the draft regulations, released back in' [...]
Who said:
"If you're going to do something, do it."
"I think there's a lot of scientific evidence that the status quo doesn't work."
"I just want to make this clear. We've never said charter schools are the magic answer."
"Frankly in education we're better at doing more things than we are stopping'" [...]
The U.S. Department of Education is shopping this Elementary and Secondary Education Act PowerPoint presentation to congressional aides this week, meant to lay out broad principles for renewing the law, now known as the No Child Left Behind Act. (Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a good [...]
Remember that student lending bill that Congress was supposed to get right on this year? You know, the one that, in the House version at least, provided all kinds of extra resources for early-childhood education, school facilities, and community colleges?
Well, it's officially December, time is running out' [...]
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan paid a visit to Education Week today, and spent an hour fielding questions from reporters about everything from No Child Left Behind Act reauthorization to the possibility of a second economic-stimulus package.
Duncan, who was accompanied by assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and [...]
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving planning grants of up to $100,000 each to nine school districts and charter groups to help them win Investing in Innovation, or i3, grants from the U.S. Department of Education.
This should come as no surprise given that Gates has already [...]
When your government-funded program is on the chopping block, a rather damning Inspector General audit will do little to bolster your case for continued funding.
Such is the case for the Center for Civic Education and its two grant programs, We the People and the Cooperative [...]
English-language learners, students in special education, and homeless students took center stage in the U.S. Department of Education's second "stakeholders" forum, held here in Washington today. These events are intended to help lay the groundwork for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
This one attracted a much smaller' [...]
Read deep into the final regulations for Race to the Top, and you'll see an outline of how the Education Department plans to judge states' applications.
There's the 500-point grading scale, of course.
But for the finalists, there's one last step: Fly to Washington, bring your five best [...]
Media reports about inaccurate estimates of just how many jobs have been saved or created under the federal economic stimulus law came back to bite Obama administration officials testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this morning.
The hearing, which continues this afternoon, has been very partisan, with [...]
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, whose education experience is firmly planted in urban ground, is continuing to reach out to rural folks to figure out how the reforms he's pushing will play out in the farther reaches of the country.
Nine rural superintendents, from Michigan, Texas, West Virginia, California, Mississippi, Kansas,' [...]
Rep. David R. Obey, the Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a major architect of the stimulus law, ranted and raved yesterday in this statement about inaccurate reporting on Recovery.gov.
"Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it," Obey said. "Whether the" [...]
Thelma Melendez, the U.S. Department of Education's assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, hasn't made any headlines since taking this key K-12 job in the Obama Administration.
And in a 40-minute interview I had with her late last week, she wouldn't reveal' [...]
In Baltimore today, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the ultra-liberal Rev. Al Sharpton, and the Obama Administration's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, continued their education reform road show. They visited three of the city's schools--a KIPP school, a regular old public school, and a neighborhood charter school--all serving [...]
If you haven't read Michele's thoughtful story on the final Race to the Top rules, you should do so immediately. She mentions that the Education Department has set "non-binding" spending levels for how big each winning state's grant might be. The levels are based on the number of' [...]
A sampling of reaction from around the blogsphere on today's release of final Race to the Top regulations:
Eduflack guesses that 4 or 5 states will win grants in Round 1 (heavily weighted toward the Gates states), with a dozen or so in Round 2.
Over at Flypaper,' [...]
With the Race to the Top final rules set to come out today, the major media outlets (from the Wall Street Journal to The Washington Post) all covered the news with different flair.
What's interesting in the New York Times' piece by Sam Dillon is that [...]
The U.S. Department of Education will unveil final rules for the $4 billion competition tomorrow, but until then, get the skinny at edweek.org.
[...]Two big-name Obama administration officials, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Melody Barnes, a top White House education adviser, will be speaking at the Harlem Children's Zone conference in New York.
The speeches will almost certainly showcase the Obama administration's budget proposal to create a Promise Neighborhoods program, which [...]
From guest blogger Debbie Viadero
Word slipped out at today's meeting of the National Board for Education Sciences that the final regulations for the Race to the Top program, which are due to be published any day now, will include a big focus on science, technology, engineering, and math or' [...]
Rick Hess, over at the American Enterprise Institute's Blog, asks an excellent question:
"Why Is the Secretary of Education Lobbying on the Healthcare Bill?"
' [...]
President Obama continues to try to drum up interest and excitement in Race to the Top, using a speech in Wisconsin today to urge the state's lawmakers to remove its student-teacher data firewall and highlight progress other states have made in gearing' [...]
The U.S. Department of Education has taken its Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization tour all the way across the street: to the National Museum of the American Indian, literally across Independence Avenue from department headquarters in Washington.
An event today gave tribal leaders, in town anyway for a [...]
By guest blogger Erik Robelen:
We've got a more complete picture this morning from yesterday's elections, especially concerning ballot measures of interest to the education community. For starters, those looking to protect, and perhaps increase, contributions to school coffers got some good news in Maine, Ohio, and Washington state.
Voters in [...]
