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For months-no, years-the ESEA discussion has been nothing short of maddening. While many pundits decry the lack of a "clear route to reauthorization," an obvious bipartisan solution has been sitting there, ready for the picking. It goes something like this: Step away from federal heavy-handedness around states' accountability and teacher credentialing systems; keep plenty of transparency of results in place, especially test scores disaggregated by racial and other subgroups; offer incentives for embracing promising reforms instead of mandates; and give school districts a lot more flexibility to move their federal dollars around as they see fit.

The Pennsylvania legislature is working on a "school choice" bill-meaning school vouchers and expanded charter schools. Rachel Tabachnik has detailed the network of Betsy DeVos-funded think tanks and PACs that are pushing privatization. But no move to undermine public education that works for all kids would be complete without Michelle Rhee, and Karoli at Crooks and Liars details how Rhee's StudentsFirst has been involved. After a string of Rhee appearances with voucher supporters and at DeVos-funded events, StudentsFirst has hired a lobbyist with some hardcore Republican credentials

When people like Diane Ravitch talk about the billionaires taking over education policy, they are sometimes dismissed as being alarmist, or even of promoting conspiracy theories. But a recent video details exactly how this has been happening, in the state of Illinois. The video released last week of Jonah Edelman describing how he and his group, Stand For Children, managed to maneuver education "reform" legislation is still reverberating through the education blog world.

While all eyes were on the rallies for and against same-sex marriage last Friday, the Assembly carried on a quintessential - but much less glitzy - debate about education policy.

"School may be out for the summer, but school choice is in, as states across the nation have moved to expand education opportunities for disadvantaged kids. This year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time."

They say it's all about great teachers and principals....

While some of the changes to the No Child Left Behind law proposed Tuesday are widely considered to be improvements, others could prove disastrous for students with disabilities and other groups of students. One of the bill's most striking features is its elimination of specific achievement targets for individual groups of students. For students with disabilities and students learning English, that portion of NCLB-the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act-was groundbreaking.

Senate education chairman Tom Harkin has finally released his committee's bill for renewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now known as No Child Left Behind.) Here's a look at the key pieces with respect to teacher-quality policy

President Obama's decision to separate his jobs bill into individual pieces and push for funds to hire teachers and first responders first has so far failed to convince any Republicans lawmakers of its efficacy. And in large part, the pushback from the GOP has been fairly straightforward. As House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office argued in an email on Monday, the administration has already asked for and received billions of dollars in direct aid to states for the purposes of retaining teachers and putting firefighters and cops back to work -- and it hasn't made a lick of difference.

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.

In education policy, Congress and President Obama's administration continue to seek an unrealizable national whip that will somehow transform American schools for the better. These efforts ignore both evidence and common sense.

The Michigan Senate passed six bills Thursday that give parents more options for their children's education, including one that lifts restrictions on the number of cyber charter schools that can open and the number of students that can enroll in them.