8.24.10 – Just as the vaunted U.S. News and World Report rated UC Berkeley as the nation's top public university last week, a less-noticed ranking system from the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni gave UC Berkeley an "F" because it only requires students to take one out of seven core subjects as defined by the study.

8.18.10 – PHOENIX – Student enrollment at America’s top universities has risen swiftly in the past 20 years, and tuition rates and taxpayer costs have jumped even higher.

8.13.10 – Sandra Stotsky – In June 2010, the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) offered the nation two sets of English language arts standards: one set called “college and career readiness anchor standards,” and the other, grade-level standards that build towards these anchor standards.

8.10.10 – Cory Larkin – What happens when parents have the opportunity to exercise choice and send their children to private schools? Children get an education that best meets their unique needs, and taxpayers get to put some hard-earned dollars back in their pockets.

7.31.10 – BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO – Even after multiple drafts, Common Core’s final English language arts (ELA) and mathematics standards don’t compare favorably with those in California and what was until recently in place in Massachusetts, according to a review published jointly by the Pacific Research Institute and Pioneer Institute.

7.27.10 – Lindsey Burke – “The Common Core Curriculum: National Education Standards Even Conservatives Can Love.” This is what Chester Finn and Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute write about the Obama Administration’s push to implement national standards in classrooms across the nation.

7.25.10 – The denial of controversial UNC-Wilmington professor Michael Adams’ promotion has worrisome implications. An important free speech and academic freedom case merits attention because it appears to portend an erosion of the protection professors have traditionally enjoyed for their writings.

The New York Times reports that 27 states are planning to adopt the set of national standards developed by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) — standards being backed by the Obama administration with federal funds. Like so many of the president’s moves in the past year, this

7.21.10 – Despite Obama administration claims, research finds no link between achievement scores and academic standards

7.19.10 – Effective boards take full and final accountability for their districts. The Greek philosopher Diogenes was said to have walked about in the daylight with a lamp, seeking an honest man. If alive today, he might instead be seeking accountable school boards.

EAST LANSING, Mich. (July 14, 2010) – A new Think Twice review released today finds that a recent report on the effect of Florida's class-size reduction reform on student achievement does not actually study the impact of class-size reduction.

For those who equate preschool with sandboxes and fingerpaints, the sight of 3- and 4-year-old children using computers, video and digital cameras feels jarring. But as these tools become easier for children to use – and as companies have learned to market their wares to younger and younger customers – it is no longer unusual to see preschool children using technology at home and at school.

Over the past several months, we’ve seen – and will continue to see — a flurry of announcements about states receiving federal grants to fix the schools that they have designated as “persistently low performing” – eduspeak for those 5 percent at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to giving children a decent education.

Let's assume that the people invited to present at the 2010 Aspen Institute Ideas Festival have important ideas to share. Then let's also assume that there are important things we can learn from their own career paths: how did they become people with "bold ideas?" How did they emerge from the rough and tumble inner cities to the more affluent communities to become the people they are.

7.8.10 – Jennifer Cohen – Much has happened since Ed Money Watch wrote about the Education Jobs Fund last Thursday. First and foremost, the House passed the amended version of the war supplemental bill that included $10 billion for the Education Jobs Fund. This program would provide additional funding to states to save jobs in K-12 education.

6.28.10 – Tom Sticht – A June 2010 article by Andrew Coulson (The CATO Institute) presents data indicating that employment in public schools almost doubled from 1970 to 2010. Two-thirds of this increase in school personnel was for more teachers and teacher aides. The rest was for administrators and other support personnel.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Students in Washington, D.C., who used a federally funded voucher to attend a private school were more likely to graduate from high school than students in a control group that did not take part in the voucher program, according to the latest evaluation of the program by an Arkansas-led team.

6.16.10 – Kids’ advocates stood on the sidelines last March, watching helplessly as the Early Learning Challenge Fund, a $1 billion-a-year initiative to strengthen the quality of early education and child care, was stricken from the health care reform bill. The fact that early education wasn’t important enough to merit an up-or-down vote

6.4.10 – Lori Drummer and Don Soifer – Cavernous achievement gaps between Latino children in the United States and their white peers have not only persisted through the past decade, but have barely shown any signs of improving. For the two in five Latino eighth graders who score "below basic" on standardized tests,

6.3.10 – David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D – The year 2010 will surely go down as a bad year for Head Start—a “Great Society” pre-school program intended to provide a boost to disadvantaged children before they enter elementary school.