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All of Duncan's Race-To-The-Top stimulus money handouts, his speaking tours with Newt Gingrich, his embrace of T-Party govs like Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels, none of that could buy him the credibility with Congress he needed for re-authorization of No Child Left Behind.

This was written by Mike Rose, who is on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and is the author of " Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us " and " Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America. "

The ability to measure cost effectiveness in education, and convince parents and educators that it's in their best interest, will determine the future of online education, according to a paper authored by the American Enterprise Institute's Frederick M. Hess.

At the onset of the 2010-11 school year, 39 new charter schools opened their doors in the Buckeye State. These new schools bring the total number of charters in Ohio to just over 350.  They collectively serve more than 100,000 students. No doubt some of these new schools are bringing quality education to children who need it and providing a strong return on investment for the state.  But also among the new schools are seven operated by EdisonLearning and authorized by the Education Resource Consultants of Ohio (ERCO).

Each time I read the newest claims coming from the new reformers -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, and Geoffrey Canada -- I think about my days in the classroom and on the field. These new reformers reached their positions of authority in education reform, first, without any real expertise (similar, I must admit, to how I became a varsity soccer coach without ever having played the game). Next, one of the central refrains of their message has been teacher accountability.

TERRY MOE MADE his name in the early 1990s when, with John Chubb, he co-authored a much-discussed book arguing for a system of publicly-funded private school vouchers. The central thesis of Politics, Markets and America's Schools was that "direct democratic control" of public education was "incompatible with effective schooling." Chubb and Moe argued that private school vouchers would create efficient markets in education, and that "choice is a panacea."

Introduction to 9 articles from different authors as part of NYT Room for Debate series.

A substantial body of evidence reveals that past reforms have largely failed to improve schools in urban areas. The authors contend that prior efforts failed because they did not address the numerous ways that past research has shown poverty influences student academic outcomes and school performance (Coleman et al., 1966; Rothstein, 2004). The author's call for a new approach to school improvement, one that draws upon the principles advocated by the Broader and Bolder Approach, and includes: evidence-based instruction, community engagement, and the strategies that have been pursued by the Harlem Children's Zone, the Children's Aid Society, and a small number of similar efforts that attempt to mitigate the effects of poverty.

John Covington, who resigned abruptly as superintendent of the Kansas City, Mo., school system, is moving to Michigan to become chancellor of a new educational authority that will oversee some of the state's lowest performing schools, starting with a group of schools in Detroit.

Roy Roberts, a former GM executive, says his first few months on the job as emergency manager of Detroit's public schools have been "like drinking from a fire hose." "I had five weeks to pull together a budget for 2012," he said in an interview. "That's not a simple process." So far, his tenure has entailed cutting salaries across the board by 10 percent; imposing $81 million in wage concessions; and announcing a new state-run educational authority to oversee Michigan's lowest-performing schools that will pilot in Detroit next year. He has also faced several lawsuits and seen 11 people charged with stealing from the city's schools.

For those who don't remember the Bobby Ewing letdown in the Dallas television series, let me summarize: Back in the 1980s, the actor who played Bobby left the show and his character was killed, presenting a problem a year later when he decided to return. The writers dealt with the dilemma by declaring the entire 1985-86 season of storylines a dream sequence. In other words: Never mind. That's what came to mind when I got to the last chapter of Steven Brill's book "Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools, " which has received a lot of attention in school reform circles because Brill - an author, entrepreneur and founder of the Yale (University) Journalism Initiative - is a significant presence in that world and because his narrative centers on the central reform movement players (Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, etc.).

We can't say how many high school principals get calls from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, particularly when he knows he'll be speaking with a critic of his policies. We do know that he got an earful when he called the principal of South Side High School in New York, Carol Burris (one of the authors of this article).

It is still very crowded out there. The School Construction Authority has posted its annual Blue Book, a report that assigns to each school structure a capacity and actual enrollment. And as has been the case recently, many buildings had more students attending than the building was supposed to be able to hold.

The nation has just celebrated Labor Day, yet few Americans have any idea why. As high school students, most were taught little about unions-their role, their accomplishments, and how and why they came to exist. This is one of the conclusions of a new report, released today by the Albert Shanker Institute in cooperation with the American Labor Studies Center. The report, "American Labor in U.S. History Textbooks: How Labor's Story Is Distorted in High School History Textbooks," consists of a review of some of the nation's most frequently used high school U.S. history textbooks for their treatment of unions in American history. The authors paint a disturbing picture, concluding that the history of the U.S. labor movement and its many contributions to the American way of life are "misrepresented, downplayed or ignored." Students-and all Americans-deserve better.

As millions of students prepare to go back to school, budget cuts are resulting in teacher layoffs and larger classes across the country. This comes as the drive towards more standardized testing increases despite a string of cheating scandals in New York, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan also recently unveiled a controversial plan to use waivers to rewrite parts of the nation's signature federal education law, No Child Left Behind. We speak to New York City public school teacher Brian Jones and Diane Ravitch, the former Assistant Secretary of Education and counselor to Education Secretary Lamar Alexander under President George H. W. Bush, who has since this post dramatically changed her position on education policy. She is the author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."

Authors such as Henry Levin have explained on numerous occasions that for a choice model to yield equitable distribution of opportunity, consumers must have equitable access to information on schools and equitable mobility among options. Clearly, equitable geographic access is out the window in Post-Katrina New Orleans.

Moderated by Charlayne Hunter-Gault Essence, Africa Bureau Chief, and author of New News Out of Africa: Uncovering the African Renaissance Lawrence D. Bobo W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University James P. Comer Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center Angel L. Harris Associate Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies, Princeton University Diane Ravitch Research Professor of Education, New York University Michelle A. Rhee Founder and CEO, StudentsFirst

They, too, are not 'well-grounded,' so to speak, because the authors of the standards have failed to factor in some crucial elements or aspects of instruction. This failure of foresight and insight will surely cause the standards to 'sink' - to become ineffective, inappropriate, and intolerable. The biggest problem with this 'sinking' that is sure to happen is that the students, teachers, and indeed, whole school systems that will labor under these burdensome 'goals and expectations' will sink right along with them.

An open message from a Kansas City teacher to the parents and  teachers of Michigan about John Covington's reign of terror when he was superintendent of  her district's schools. Covington drastically increased the class sizes of certain KC teachers following a model suggested by Bill Gates; this experiment ended, thankfully, when he left the district. Covington was recently appointed the head of Michigan's new Education Achievement Authority to run that state's struggling schools, with the power to cancel union contracts and override duly elected school board members.

Our guest author today is David K. Cohen, John Dewey Collegiate Professor of Education and professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, and a member of the Shanker Institute's board of directors. This is a response to Michael Petrilli, who recently published a post on the Fordham Institute's blog that referred to Cohen's new book.