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This report provides a first-of-its-kind descriptive summary of private school expenditures. It includes comparisons of expenditures among different types and affiliations of private schools, and it also compares those expenditures with public school expenditures for districts in the same state and labor market. Results indicate that (1) the less-regulated private school sector is more varied in many key features (teacher attributes, pay and school expenditures) than the more highly regulated public schooling sector; (2) these private school variations align and are largely explained by affiliation -- primarily religious affiliation -- alone; and (3) a ranking of school sectors by average spending correlates well with a ranking of those sectors by average standardized test scores.

The accountability system at the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act would be completely reinvented under a draft reauthorization proposal released today by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

"The biggest threat to education today is the corporate education reform movement-what many of us call "Ed Deform." It is also the biggest threat to teachers' working conditions."

"Filmmaker Michael Elliot stirringly documents special education teacher Jia Lee's historic testimony on the dangers of standardized tests before Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken and other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "

The Boston Consulting Group has identified up to 60 Philadelphia school buildings as potential candidates for closure and helped line up private vendors willing to replace the School District's unionized blue-collar workforce at a $50 million discount. These steps are just part of the blue-chip consulting firm's far-ranging behind-the-scenes effort to help the beleaguered city school system rethink how it does business. The broad scope of BCG's efforts this spring are detailed in previously unreleased "statements of work" obtained by the Notebook/NewsWorks under Pennsylvania's Right to Know law.

Rahm Emanuel, whom Occupy Chicago has dubbed Mayor 1%, fired another shot at the city's public schools December 1. He proposed seven school closings and phase-outs, 10 "turnarounds" in which all the teachers and staff get fired, and six "co-locations," where private charter school operators grab portions of existing public schools.

In fits and starts-and amid budget crises and legislative changes to bargaining-there are signs that more school administrators and teachers' unions, like those in Springfield, are doing business together in a different way.

Despite fewer delegates than previous years-just about 9,000, down from 10,000-the National Education Association's annual convention is still the largest delegated decision-making body in the world.

With NBC airing a second "Education Nation" special that resembles an infomercial for charter schools and online learning, the media watchdog group FAIR held an event Tuesday to clear the air. The panelists at the MisEducation Nation forum in New York City said the coverage offered by NBC was, at best, misguided-a noble but seriously uninformed effort, said Leonie Haimson, a New York City public school parent and leader of Class Size Matters, which advocates for reducing the number of students per teacher. At worst, "Education Nation" is a sounding board for the corporate education "reform" movement driven by the billionaires' agenda, said Brian Jones, a Brooklyn teacher.