Arne Duncan, Angel Gurría and Fred van Leeuwen: Increasing teacher autonomy and participation in reform is vital not just to improving student outcomes but to elevating the teaching profession. We reject the prevailing wisdom that it can’t be done.

Emily Ayscue Hassel – Could redesigned tenure actually help grow the size and power of an elite teaching corps that reaches far more children with high-progress learning?

Tom Sticht – “Maliteracy practice” is a term I have coined to refer to professional wrongdoing, intentionally or inadvertently, that results in injury or damage to people as a result of taking actions or making statements about their literacy competence.

Peter Meyer – In a provocative new school funding case, a federal court judge in Kansas City ruled against parents from the suburban Shawnee Mission school district who had wanted to increase property taxes above the state mandated limit.

Core Curriculum Must Build a Bridge from Standards to Achievement. We, the undersigned, representing viewpoints from across the political and educational spectrum, believe that whether children live in Mississippi or Minnesota, Berkeley or the Bronx, our expectations for their achievement should be equally high.

Doug Lasken and Bill Evers – Students in California public schools are not achieving at the levels they should. Too many students are unprepared for jobs or have to take remedial courses when they start college.

Heather Wolpert-Gawron – It’s actually happened. On March 2, all direct funding of the National Writing Project was eliminated. As a result, you have deleted one of the only proven programs to improve teaching quality and student achievement.

Richard Rothstein – Last week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates published an op-ed in the Washington Post, “How Teacher Development could Revolutionize our Schools,” proposing that American public schools should do a better job of evaluating the effectiveness of teachers, a goal with which none can disagree.

President Obama and Michelle Obama opened a White House conference to spur antibullying efforts in schools and communities.

Piyush Mangukiya – School bullying continues to be on the rise and is happening at earlier ages. In a recent survey, at least seven out of 10 students claim that they have been bullied at least once at school, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

WASHINGTON—A new survey on bullying by the National Education Association (NEA) finds that school employees know bullying is pervasive in schools and that they believe it’s their job to intervene—but that they need more training to do so effectively.

The Case for Paying Most Teachers the Same
Michael Petrilli – What makes the single salary schedule so pernicious isn’t just its uniformity; it’s its growth curve. Twenty-five years veterans are paid a lot more than five-year veterans even though, on average, they are equally effective. Changing that curve is at least as important as introducing more differentiation in pay.

Kenneth Stichter – This longitudinal trend study investigated student satisfaction perceptions of instructional climate in one high school district. The purpose was to probe what students define as instructional climate and whether their perception changed during a decade of expanding emphasis on accountability in California.

STEVE MARK – From his 30th floor perch overlooking Hermann Park and the Texas Medical Center, Billy Reagan surveys the area horizon shortly before dusk, with particular interest in the cloud cover above and mobility patterns below.

An estimated 82 percent of U.S. schools could be labeled as “failing” under the nation’s No Child Left Behind Act this year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday.

The potential expansion of the private-school voucher program under the proposed state budget adds another level of concern for MPS.

Educators note that the quality of the hours students spend in class is as important as the quantity

Michael F. Shaughnessy – This is probably the safest country in the world. I walk late at night on my own; my partner has left a mobile phone in the basket of our scooter which was still there the following morning; my wallet was taken to the local police box when I dropped it…….

This article, the first in a series, is based on USA TODAY’s analysis of standardized test scores from about 24,000 public schools in six states and Washington, D.C. The test [...]