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At a time when many states are adopting controversial measures to launch or expand private school vouchers, Republicans in Michigan are taking a different direction, moving ahead with a plan that would greatly expand the menu of public school choices for students and parents.

A few weeks back, the Indiana Department of Ed opted to intervene in seven schools across Indiana. Six of the schools are in Indianapolis and one is in Gary. Of the seven, the Indiana Department of Ed is taking over five, and contracting with three different external operators to take the lead on these schools. The lever was provided by Public Law 221, which allows the state superintendent to bring in external turnaround school operators for a school that has received the state's lowest grade for six consecutive years. The operators are Edison Learning, EdPower, and Charter School USA. (The other two schools will remain under the auspices of the local school district.)

Missouri education officials revoked the accreditation of the Kansas City School District on Tuesday after it failed for several years to meet most of the state's academic performance standards, an embarrassing blow to the beleaguered district that is again trying to find a superintendent.

It would be somewhat churlish to criticize any attempt to honor public school teachers just when they feel under assault by the modern school reform movement - including Monday night's glitzy celebration for some D.C. teachers at the Kennedy Center. But it seems fair to ask whether a fancy event at the city's leading arts venue - complete with big-time supporters (including The Washington Post Company) - is really the best or even appropriate way to celebrate teachers and their profession.

Boston, Central Falls, R.I., and Sacramento, Calif. will join a handful of other of other school systems to receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to set up collaborative relationships with charter schools within their borders, the Seattle-based philanthropy announced today.

State education officials say an Orange County high school that issued color-coded identification cards to students this year based on their standardized test scores is violating the students' privacy and the unlawful practice should be curtailed. Kennedy High School in La Palma is requiring students to carry school ID cards in one of three colors based on their performance on the California Standards Tests - black, gold or white - plus a spiral-bound homework planner with a cover of a matching color. The black card, which is the highest level, and the gold card give students a range of special campus privileges and discounts, while the white card gives students no privileges and forces them to stand in a separate cafeteria lunch line.

Yet another charter school is on the path to unionization after a majority of its teachers voted to seek representation from the United Federation of Teachers.

For a generation, there has been loose bipartisan agreement in Washington that the federal government has a necessary role to play in the nation's 13,600 school districts, primarily by using money to compel states to raise standards. But the field of Republican presidential candidates has promised to unwind this legacy, arguing that education responsibilities should devolve to states and local districts, which will do a better job than Washington.

The Web site of Carnegie Learning, a company started by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University that sells classroom software, trumpets this promise: "Revolutionary Math Curricula. Revolutionary Results." The pitch has sounded seductive to thousands of schools across the country for more than a decade. But a review by the United States Department of Education last year would suggest a much less alluring come-on: Undistinguished math curricula. Unproven results.

A map of the funders of the charter school movement looks much like a map of the funders of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

Late last month, Miami-Dade school district officials scolded the Academy of Arts & Minds charter school for charging fees to students to attend basic classes - in violation of state law. But when the school's governing board met the next day, the fee issue was not mentioned. And when a parent began reading from the district's warning letter to the school, two board members walked out.

The union representing nearly 700 public school employees who were laid off at the end of the school day on Friday held a last-minute lunchtime rally on the steps of City Hall, calling the layoffs a political vendetta and threatening possible legal action. But for all of the chanting and sign waving by District Council 37, the layoffs went through as planned. At the end of the day, Sungmi Kang, 47, a school aide at Stuyvesant High School, was out of work, along with 638 other school aides, parent coordinators, community associates, and other school support staff. They are the city's lowest paid employees and the latest victims of budget cuts.

The ring of the last school bell on Friday could be heralding the beginning of unemployment and uncertainty for more than 700 employees in 347 city schools - school aides, parent coordinators, health aides and other support staff to whom pink slips went out two weeks ago.

Now that the Senate is getting close to consideration of a bill to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, groups are beginning to release their ideas on key aspects of the law, including teacher quality.

Republicans who control the Michigan Senate followed through Thursday on their plan to introduce so-called "right to teach" legislation, escalating a clash with the state's largest teachers union. Public schools would not be allowed to require employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment under the Senate bill. It appears the bill would affect only the state's largest teachers union, the Michigan Education Association, because it would apply only to unions that represent at least 50,000 workers.

America's urban public schools are in trouble: Student test scores are low and dropout rates are high. Recent remedies proposed include everything from reducing the power of teachers unions and opening more charter schools to ending test-based accountability. But what if education critics are focused on the wrong problem?

Michelle Rhee, the former D.C. public schools chief, will speak to a full house at Kent State University's Stark campus tonight as part of its Featured Speakers Series. In response, the university's education faculty will hold their own event later this month to present "an insider's view of education as a profession."

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

You can hardly open a newspaper or major magazine today without finding a story about another incarnation or overhaul of teacher evaluation. But underlying nearly all these detailed descriptions of state and local programs is a near-unanimous and long-standing assumption: Whoever is in charge of improving teachers shouldn't also be in charge of evaluating them.