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"The Albany Times Union calls it a "shadow government" within the New York State Education Department. It is supported by $19 million in donations from wealthy individuals and foundations. The "Regents Research Fund" fellows are a private think tank embedded in the public Education department that is defining Education for New York's 3.1 million public school students. They frame policy, consult regularly with State Education Commissioner John King, and interact with state employees and officials, but they are not covered by the state's Public Officer's Law or ethics rules."

"In the intensifying debate over the future of education, two camps seem to be emerging. On one side, there are people like New York University professor/former Deputy U.S. education Secretary Diane Ravitch who argue that larger social ills such as poverty, joblessness, economic despair and lack of health coverage negatively affect educational achievement, and that until those problems are addressed, schools will never be able to produce the results we want. On the other side, there are so-called "reformers" who want to radically change (read: charterize and/or privatize) public education under the premise that the primary problems are bad/lazy teachers and "unaccountable" school administrators."

"There's an article in this month's Wired Magazine about Khan Academy. The headline speaks volumes - "How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education" - as do the responses I've seen to the article. As usual, there's plenty of praise for Sal Khan and his one-man-Educational-video-making machine. But there's also push-back from some quarters, particularly from educators who are highly skeptical of what Khan Academy delivers and what it stands for."

Back in April, New York's classy commissioner of education David Steiner discreetly announced that he'd be stepping down in July. This was shortly after Cathie Black's tumultuous departure as NYCDOE Chancellor, so David's announcement drew less attention than it probably merited. A lifelong academic, with a philosophy degree from Oxford and a doctorate in political science from Harvard, Steiner may have been the most erudite state chief in recent memory. Before taking the appointment, he'd previously served as the dean of the education school at Hunter College, where he oversaw the creation of the heralded Teacher U training program. (Back in February, Teacher U split off into its own degree-granting institution, Relay School of education, designed to train current teachers in 10 U.S. cities.) During his two years as commissioner, Steiner helped New York develop tougher standards and guided the state to a successful Race to the Top round two victory. As he returns to Hunter, I thought it timely to chat with David about a few of his takeaways and lessons learned from his time running the New York state education agency. This is a topic that's been particularly on mind, given our just-issued Center for American Progress-AEI study on the challenges of SEAs and what it'll take for them to succeed in an era of increasing responsibilities.

The U.S. Department of Education won't cut South Carolina's share of federal special Education dollars by $36 million-at least not yet-prompting questions about whether such penalties for states that cut Education spending without federal approval are meaningful.

The "standards-based" K-12 educational reform movement began in the late 1980s and continues today. The original goals of most sets of content standards included an altered form of classroom practice. educational researchers devoted great effort to developing inquiry-oriented instructional materials and professional development models to support the reform efforts. Although there have been pockets of reform success in some schools and districts, large-scale evaluations of reform efforts indicate that the influence of these efforts on classroom practice and student achievement have been uneven at best. It is our contention that reformers' focus on changing classroom practice is misguided. The standards movement has been hijacked by a "business-scientific" view of schooling that assumes the purpose of education is to prepare students to compete in the global economy. The concepts of assessment and accountability associated with this purpose in the business-scientific view inhibit reform. Researchers committed to reform need to recognize the inherently political nature of reform and work toward a renegotiation of the overarching purpose of education. This also means attending to the consequences of that purpose for school governance, assessment, and accountability.

In the wake of the stock market crash, Congress wisely passed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933. The landmark legislation successfully separated investment and commercial banking activities until it was repealed in 1999. Many economists today believe the decision to do so played a major role in the country's financial meltdown. I see a dangerous parallel taking place in education. As columnist Michael Winerip explained in "When Free Trips Overlap With Commercial Purposes" (On education, The New York Times, Sept. 19), test companies are increasingly involved in the decisions made by state education officials. Winerip detailed how the Pearson Foundation through its commercial side paid to send top state education officials abroad to meet with their international counterparts.

DOE is not in compliance with the SED's Physical Education Regulations for elementary-level students and middle-level students in elementary schools. DOE does not have an overall written physical Education plan nor does it monitor schools' compliance with the regulations. Therefore, DOE has no assurance that the students in elementary schools are receiving the minimum required physical Education. In fact, our review of a sample of 31 elementary schools found limited evidence that any of the sampled schools were in compliance with the SED physical Education requirements for all of its students.

Alexander's view on No Child Left Behind is important because he is among just a few Republicans in the Senate who understand education (he was education Secretary under President George H.W. Bush), and he has the clout to push his ideas within his own party. What Alexander wants on education represents one of the best yardsticks for what can pass the Senate if Democrats go along. He also could block other ideas. (For example, he is introducing legislation to stop education Secretary Arne Duncan from using waivers to impose federal policies on the states.)

Education at a Glance 2011: Highlights offers a reader-friendly introduction to the OECD's collection of internationally comparable data on Education. As the name suggests, it is derived from Education at a Glance 2011, the OECD's flagship compendium of Education statistics.

Books criticizing higher education are gaining in popularity,  judging from the number written and published in the last year or so (see here, here, here, and here for just a few examples).  Naomi Riley's The Faculty Lounges And Other Reasons That You Won't Get the College education You Paid For, which I was asked to review by the publisher, has just joined these ranks. In her book, Riley tackles an important question facing the U.S. higher education system - that is, whether the increasing number of contingent faculty, including adjunct professors and part-time instructors, has eroded the value and quality of a university education.

The U.S. Department of Education has evaluated states since the 2005-06 school year based on their ability to meet certain "measurable and rigorous targets" related to educating students with disabilities. This map shows the most current rating for each state's performance under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which covers students from ages 3 to 21.

Most governors are fond of talking about education-why it needs to be improved, how they're going to improve it, the consequences of not improving it, and so on. But when governors attempt to use the bully pulpit to sell their ideas about education to the public, what are their favored rhetorical themes? A new analysis examines that question, and finds that governors overwhelmingly choose to frame education as important for economic reasons, rather than for the development of individual abilities, or as a matter of civic responsibility. And that political strategy has implications for society and its schools, the researchers say.

Released in August, the U.S. Department of Education study mapping state proficiency standards onto the National Assessment of Educational Progress scales produced a remarkable statement from Joanne Weiss, the chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. According to an article in the Aug. 24 issue of Education Week, Weiss said the practice of permitting each state to set its own proficiency standards amounts to "lying to parents, lying to children, lying to teachers and principals about the work they're doing." Her intemperate outburst crosses the line, not only by the standards of what passes for civil discourse in Washington these days, but also for what it says about the assessment itself. Indeed, a plausible case can be made that when it comes to telling fibs about proficiency, NAEP has a nose that annually grows longer, for its definition of proficiency is seriously flawed.

"Education Secretary Arne Duncan is seen as the most powerful Education secretary ever, given his use of federal funding and No Child Left Behind waivers to get states to follow school reform policies that he supported.  Many of his critics argue that his federal overreach is excessive and has encroached on local and state authority to run public school districts as they see fit. The author of the following posts asks whether there has been too much federal overreach, or whether the administration has used its executive power in Education in the wrong ways. This was written by Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. The ideas expressed in this article are his alone and do not represent Stevens Institute."

"NPE is proud to share this interactive infographic detailing the last 15 years of Bill Gates's public education experiments. It contains links to 13 reports from 12 of the nation's leading pro-public education advocates (which you will also find in the "Around the States" entries below.) Hover your cursor over the green, yellow, and red entries to reveal links to the reports. You'll also find a video of Gates embedded in the center quote. Please share widely to let others know the full extent of the destructive influence Bill and Melinda Gates have had, and continue to have, on the democratic institution of public education."

"Several recent reports, including one from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, have found that charter schools generally under-enroll special education students when compared to conventional public schools. A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public education, however, asserts that charter schools' special education rates are much closer to those of district public schools than is described by these other recent reports. A review of that new report concludes that, even though it was touted as reaching different conclusions - more favorable to charter schools - than past research, in fact the results are very much consistent. It confirms that charter schools are systematically under-enrolling students with special needs."

"Today institutions of higher education, public and private, remain largely segregated by race, religion and economic condition. White colleges and universities remain primarily white, Black institutions remain primarily black, and denominational institutions remain even more religiously identifiable. Such segregation is sanctified with tons of federal and state money in the forms of tuition vouchers, tax credits and government subsidized loans. The Obama administration has been largely foreclosed from remedying the situation for fear of offending powerful political forces representing the investors and private institutions. The higher education voucher/loan dilemma portends a probable scenario for the future of tuition vouchers and charter schools at the primary and secondary levels. Stiglitz quotes Alexis de Tocqueville who said that the main element of the "peculiar genius of American society" is "self-interest properly understood." The last two words, "properly understood," are the key, says Stiglitz. According to Stiglitz, everyone possesses self-interest in the "narrow sense." This "narrow sense" with regard to educational choice is usually exercised for reasons other than educational quality, the chief reasons being race, religion, economic and social status, and similarity with persons with comparable information, biases and prejudices. But Stiglitz interprets Tocqueville's "properly understood" to mean a much broader and more desirable and moral objective, that of "appreciating" and paying attention to everyone else's self-interest. In other words, the common welfare is, in fact, "a precondition for one's own ultimate well being."17 Such commonality in the advancement of the public good is lost by the narrow self-interest. School tuition vouchers and charter schools are the operational models for implementation of the "narrow self-interest." It is easy to recognize, but difficult to justify. "

Getting rid of ineffective teachers is pretty much the focus of school reform these days but pinpointing who really should go isn't as easy as it seems. Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, looks at the issue here. He writes the Sociological Eye on education blog - where this post first appeared - for The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, non-partisan education-news outlet affiliated with the Hechinger Institute on education and the Media.

"If the Department of Education gets its way, new teachers won't have to enroll in local colleges or universities to get certification to work in city schools. Shael Polakow-Suransky, the department's second in command, said today that the department would ask the state for permission to certify teachers internally by using top educators to train new recruits in shortage areas. Currently, teachers must either have completed an Education certification program at a college or university or be enrolled in one."