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Despite the lack of popular and legislative support for vouchers in New Jersey, the so-called Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA) just won't go away. Strong pushback against vouchers last winter from public school parents and advocates provided encouragement for the many legislators who do not support the bill. Deep opposition, coupled with polls clearly showing a majority of NJ residents oppose vouchers and the uproar over spending taxpayer money on private and religious schools, has stopped the OSA in its tracks.

Michele Bachmann's victory in the Iowa straw poll Saturday represents many obvious things: the mainstreaming of the Tea Party, the overnight ordinariness of female presidential candidates, the increasing irrelevance of also-ran moderates like Jon Huntsman. But her growing popularity among the Republican base also signals something that's been less widely acknowledged: a sea change in the party's education agenda. It's safe to say that the political era of George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind is now officially over, even as the law's testing mandates continue to reverberate in classrooms across the country.

The results from the recent Gallup/PDK education survey found that 71 percent of surveyed Americans "have trust and confidence in the men and women who are teaching children in public schools." Although this finding received a fair amount of media attention, it is not at all surprising. Polls have long indicated that teachers are among the most trusted professions in the U.S., up there with doctors, nurses and firefighters.

Are schools and teachers getting a bad rap? The American public has its own views on this.

As the Chicago Teachers Union struck back at CPS over the longer-day issue Friday, claiming 115 schools nixed the plan in straw polls, it also sought to highlight the disproportionate effect of this year's school layoffs. Bearing the brunt of the layoffs are schools with more African-American students and those where at least 87 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches.

Headlines from Alabama tell us that the latest "education reform" there is making sure we know exactly how much the state is spending to educate the children of "illegal" immigrants. According to a new law, parents are required to present documentation when registering their children to attend school. While the law does not require school officials to turn in the names of "illegals," it has sparked widespread fear among immigrant parents, and many have withdrawn their children from school. Meanwhile, Texas governor Rick Perry's poll numbers in the Republican primary have fallen after he said that members of his party who do not support free education for students who are undocumented "have no heart."

I did a bit of digging to find out more about the role Teach Plus played supporting Senate Bill 1, passed this spring in Indiana. I found out that Stand For Children was responsible for active support of the law, including sponsoring polls that showed public support for the idea of basing teacher pay and layoffs primarily on "student academic growth."

With all the recent coverage of Occupy Wall Street and President Obama's jobs bill, we've heard a lot of polling results showing that a large plurality of Americans supports raising taxes on high earners, and that this support is strong among both Democrats and Republicans.

School board elections are supposed to be quintessential America contests. Moms and Main Street small-business owners and retired teachers campaign by knocking on doors, writing letters to the editor and debating at elementary schools. Then friends and neighbors troop to the polls and make their choices. But what happens when all the pathologies of national politics-over-the-top spending by wealthy elites and corporate interests, partisan consultants jetting in to shape big-lie messaging, media outlets that cover spin rather than substance-are visited on a local school board contest? Emily Sirota is finding out.

As expected, the Panel for Educational Policy (otherwise known as the Panel of Eight Puppets) rubberstamped two new , very controversial charter co-locations of Eva Moskowitz's expanding chain of Success Academy last night, despite huge community opposition, and hundreds of raucous and vociferous parents and teachers who turned out.  Perhaps DOE should be renamed Department of Eva. Before the meeting began, the audience voted no-confidence in the PEP, with a show of hands; and the public comment period featured a very funny interview of "Eva" played by Gloria Brandman.  (Here are some news clips:  Times, NY1, Daily News.) There was even more police presence than usual and signs up everywhere that people disrupting the meeting would be ejected; clearly DOE is very spooked by the growing militancy of protesters.