As we’ve reported, 26 states and the District of Columbia submitted applications before the second round ESEA waiver deadline on February 28. (Maine and New Hampshire decided it was better to turn their homework in late, while California has decided it deserves some special treatment.) Admittedly, it’s been taking us awhile to get through the 10,000 pages that landed on the Department of EducatContinue Reading »

Image from esea.net

Two weeks ago, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce reported out two of Chairman John Kline’s ESEA reauthorization bills, the Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teaching Act, on a party-line vote, 23-16. Democrats, led by Ranking Member George Miller, offered just two (unsuccessful) amendments, bothContinue Reading »

Educators from coast-to-coast will celebrate the nation’s first Digital Learning Day on Wednesday. Amidst the cool technology demonstrations, shiny gadgets, and debates about online learning, it’s essential not to overlook the country’s most expensive — and perhaps most ambitious — initiative to use digital technology.

Just under 18 months ago, the U.S. DepaContinue Reading »

On Friday, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), Chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, released the final two pieces of House Republicans’ piecemeal strategy to overhaul No Child Left Behind, and reactions to the bills are trickling in. The Committee had already approved legislation relating to school choice, funding flexibility, and program consolidation. While the latter two were approvContinue Reading »

Flickr photo by skyloader

The Center for American Progress released the first analysis of the initial 11 ESEA waiver applications that moves beyond the contents of each waiver proposal to the merits of a state’s application. As noted here, and here, and here the report calls out Massachusetts and Tennessee for submitting particularly well-crafted proposals and Continue Reading »

With a weekend of reflection between me and the markup of the Harkin-Enzi ESEA Reauthorization Bill, I am caught up on sleep, but still coming to terms with the implications of last Thursday’s events. Yes, the bill passed out of committee 15-7, receiving only 3 Republican votes. But what did we really learn about the direction of federal K-12 education policy, the positions of key players, and Continue Reading »

Saga: The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee meeting on the ESEA reauthorization was cut short this morning by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who objected by using a procedural, rarely used, two-hour rule. The rule does not permit committees to meet for more than two hours on days when the Senate is in session. Of the 144 amendments on the table, two and a half were conContinue Reading »

Revised ESEA bill wins bipartisan support … by watering down provisions related to teacher evaluations. Primarily, the revision takes out requirements to include student achievement data in those evals, allowing states and districts to assess educators as they see fit. Policy Analyst Anne Hyslop was one of the first on Monday with analysis on this provision. There’s more here, here, and a bit mContinue Reading »

The Senate’s ESEA Reauthorization bills (the old Harkin bill and the newer Harkin-Enzi version) elicited a familiar reaction from interest groups representing teachers, principals, and school administrators and from conservative eduwonks following the legislation: federal overreach.

You have Rick Hess: “I’m not worried about going ‘back’ to 1994… partly because some of the ‘retreats’ areContinue Reading »