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The Risks of Waiving to the Top

Last Friday, President Obama delivered the long-awaited news: it’s the end of No Child Left Behind as we know it. In a short speech delivered to a virtual Who’s Who of the education community, the President announced that NCLB’s uniform, national system of school accountability is no more. It has ceased to be. In its place, the Administration is now offering states the opportunity to receive a waiver from NCLB provided that […] Read more

Why we need GREAT colleges of education

As readers of this blog and my small-but-slowly-growing Twitter followers know, this past June Senator Michael Bennet introduced the GREAT Teachers and Principals Act, S. 1250. I haven’t stopped talking about the bill since, so I’m happy to finally be blogging this time about…well, still about GREAT! Specifically, I’d like to take a moment to explain and clarify some confusion that seems to have arisen around the interrelation between the GREAT Act and […] Read more

GREAT Act Q&A, part 2

Last Wednesday, I blogged about Senate Bill 1250, the GREAT Teachers and Principals Act, designed to create and support high-performing teacher and principal “training academies.” The introduction of this legislation sparked a wave of media coverage, which in turn generated a number of questions and discussions over Twitter, Facebook, and in the blogosphere. So, in the spirit of the Q&A theme used in my original post, I thought I would answer a […] Read more

GREAT Act Q&A

Today, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) will introduce a bill, co-sponsored by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Mark Kirk (R-IL) to support the creation and expansion of teacher and principal training academies. This legislation, titled the Growing Excellent Achievement Training Academies for Teachers and Principals Act (GREAT Act), represents a bold, innovative approach to improving the quality of teacher and leader training. And in the spirit of […] Read more

2011 Investing in Innovation (i3) competition announced

Here’s a bit of information on the newly announced 2011 round of the federal Investing in Innovation Fund, or i3. We’re thrilled that nine members of the NewSchools portfolio were winners last year, and want to make sure you have the information that will enable you to decide whether the fund is of interest to you this year. As background, the i3 Fund provides sizable awards to support the validation and expansion […] Read more

Guest Post: What’s smoking got to do with ed reform?

By Ellen Winn, Executive Vice President, 50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now Education advocacy is the hot item of the year. After years of focusing almost solely on educational practice and structure (and amassing a serious list of “what works”), there is consensus in our field that if we don’t get serious about removing political obstacles that stand in the way of implementing these proven strategies, we will never be able […] Read more

“Winning the Future.” Duh.

“Winning the future.” We know Charlie Sheen wants to (or is already), but suddenly President Obama wants in on the action too. With these words as his backdrop (see photo left!), the President recently spoke at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Virginia to call upon Congress to fix the federal No Child Left Behind education law – and before the next school year begins in the fall. Among other things, President Obama advocated […] Read more

Education for $1000, Alex

Two weeks ago, I caught 20 minutes of a Jeopardy! show featuring Skynet Watson, the trivia-loving artificial intelligence computer built by IBM. Squaring off against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the two alpha males of the human Jeopardy!-loving world, I watched with intrigue as Watson mercilessly chewed through questions (“answers”, technically) as the human “competitors” stood by helplessly. (In fact, they reminded me of the celebrity Jeopardy! contestants skewered on SNL.) Perhaps […] Read more

Why Your Government Matters

It’s not a schoolhouse rock segment (the song would be pretty lame), nor even a Civics class topic—it’s the question that NewSchools CEO Ted Mitchell will be addressing at tomorrow’s hearing of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Thursday. Ted will be among one of four witnesses testifying about the crucial things that only the federal government can do in driving reform in the education for low-income children. He […] Read more

President Races Toward Education Innovation (and Lox) in State of the Union

Earlier tonight, President Obama delivered his second State of the Union address (technically, his first speech after being elected is considered a “Joint Address to Congress”). Luckily for those of us tasked with summarizing the SOTU’s relevance to education policy, a copy of the speech leaked early to National Journal, prompting the President to joke with Secretary Clinton, “I don’t need to give the speech, everyone’s already read it.”As expected, education featured […] Read more