The Denver Post
By: Jeremy Meyer
October 12, 2010

Colorado education reformers this week will issue a report they hope will change the course of education on the heels of the debut of the much-talked-about documentary "Waiting for Superman."

Private screenings of the documentary on education will be held tonight in theaters throughout Colorado, and director Davis Guggenheim will be the speaker at Wednesday's 25th annual Children's Campaign luncheon in Denver. (Continue Reading)

The Washington Post
By: Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, et al.
October 10, 2010

As educators, superintendents, chief executives and chancellors responsible for educating nearly 2 1/2 million students in America, we know that the task of reforming the country's public schools begins with us. It is our obligation to enhance the personal growth and academic achievement of our students, and we must be accountable for how our schools perform.

All of us have taken steps to move our students forward, and the Obama administration's Race to the Top program has been the catalyst for more reforms than we have seen in decades. But those reforms are still outpaced and outsized by the crisis in public education. (Continue Reading)

New Jersey Star Ledger
By: Staff
September 30, 2010

Educational reform is one of the few issues in the galaxy that can bring the political agendas of President Obama, Gov. Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker into near-perfect alignment.

There’s a common vision and growing bipartisan support behind the reforms outlined by the Republican governor this week — like paying teachers based on merit, and weeding out the ones who are incompetent. (Continue Reading)

Associated Press
By: Christina Hoag
October 7, 2010

A sweeping overhaul of seniority-based teacher layoffs and other reforms in the nation's second-largest school district will continue despite teachers union opposition, city and school officials said Thursday.

"There's not an anti-union bone in my body. I'll continue to reach out to them, I want to work with them," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer. "But with or without them, we're moving ahead." (Continue Reading)

New York Times
By: Staff
October 14, 2010

It was inevitable that Michelle Rhee, the District of Columbia’s hard-driving schools chancellor, would resign after her boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, lost last month’s Democratic primary. It was no secret that Ms. Rhee had a strained relationship with Vincent Gray, the presumptive mayor and chairman of the City Council.

Still, Ms. Rhee’s departure is a loss for the nation’s capital. It has unsettled middle-class parents who valued the strong, reform-minded leadership that was setting Washington’s schools on the path back from failure. And it sent a tremor through the private foundations that provisionally committed nearly $80 million to support the school reforms that were started during Ms. Rhee’s tenure. {Continue Reading)

Salt Lake Tribune
By: David Clark
September 18, 2010

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend an education forum with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He discussed Florida public education reforms.

One of the great things about our 50-state system is that it allows states to learn from one another, develop best practices and implement those successful programs. (Continue Reading)

Georgia Public Policy Foundation Commentary By: Mike Klein
September 17, 2010

Public school education agendas proposed by the two major candidates for Georgia Governor leave wide open a hole that any running back would appreciate. Nathan Deal and Roy Barnes put forward plans that give only slight mention to digital learning. They're overlooking a significant education priority for the state's children.

Georgia’s candidates have the opportunity to take a bold step. They could declare the state will become a national leader in digital learning. They could say every high school student will participate in at least one digital course each semester. They could say it will happen within their first term. Georgia is a long way from being able to provide those resources, but Georgia can get there. One of them could make it happen. (Continue Reading)

The Oklahoman
By: Staff
October 10, 2010

Here's a reminder for some Tulsa-area school board members: Your attorney is not your boss. So when he advises that you disregard state law, think twice. And think about that part of your oath as a school board member that requires you to uphold state law.

The blatant disregard with which school board members in Broken Arrow and Jenks acted last week in voting not to comply with a new state law is outrageous. Worse yet, several other school boards may follow suit. (Continue Reading)

Education Week
By: Michele McNeil and Christina A. Samuels
August 18, 2010

Two former governors of Florida and West Virginia with longstanding interests in education policy today unveiled an effort intended to encourage states to more deeply weave current and future technology innovations into public education.

In a press release, Governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise say that the newly-formed Digital Learning Council will move digital learning to the forefront of education and away from the “niche role” they believe digital learning plays today.

The 50-member council includes U.S. Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education James H. Shelton, who leads the federal education department’s office of innovation and improvement; John D. Couch, vice-president of education at Apple Inc.; Shafeen Charania, director of education product group marketing for Microsoft; Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va., and state officials and members of education think-tanks.

The plan is to create a set of best practices that would cover a range of digital learning issues, including: online and virtual schools, classroom technology, equity, security and privacy, and digital content.

The council plans to do its work in two phases. It will develop the list of best practices for digital education by November or December, and in the second phase, encourage states to adopt them. The process is intended to be similar to that of the Data Quality Campaign, a foundation-funded group based in Washington focused on improving the collection, availability and use of high quality education data.

According to a news release from the new group, more than 2 million K-12 students take courses online, and 1.5 million home-education students take online courses, “but that barely scratches the surface of what is possible through technology.”

“The members of the Digital Learning Council share a sense of extreme urgency about the need to bring digital learning to every school, every classroom, and every child,” said Gov. Wise in a statement.

Gov. Wise said the move to create digital learning standards is urgent because of teacher retirements, declining state revenues, and an education pipeline that’s not near President Obama’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

In an interview with Education Week, Gov. Bush said digital technology’s “disruptive nature for good has not been applied to our education system. If you look at how technology has improved our lives, it has only been an accessory in education.” The blueprint created by the Digital Learning Council “will move us towards a more customized learning environment where more students learn at their maximum pace.”

Gov. Bush said that the group is nonpartisan.

“My hope is we aren’t going to advance any particular agenda,” he said.

The Oklahoman
By: Megan Rolland
August 12, 2010

How did Florida's students go from among the lowest performers in the nation on federal reading exams to among the top in the nation in just 11 years?

That was the question posed to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was in Oklahoma for two days promoting Florida's education reforms and stumping for two GOP candidates on the ballot in November: Janet Barresi for state superintendent of schools and U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, who is running for governor. (Continue Reading)

The Oklahoman
Editorial
August 16, 2010

Blame it on the grown-ups. That's not exactly what former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said during his visit here last week. But it's a pretty close paraphrase, at least when it comes to the topic of why Oklahoma kids are academic underachievers.

Here were Bush's exact words: "Oklahoma has languished. There's no reason why Oklahoma kids can't learn, other than the adults around them.” Can we get an amen? (Continue Reading)

The Arizona Republic
By: Kevin Kiley
August 16, 2010

A plan to switch how Arizona schools are evaluated by starting to use familiar letter grades is likely to give many schools report-card shock.

The aim of the change is to drive school improvement by making it easier to gauge exactly how well schools are doing. But a new way in which the evaluations will be figured is expected to produce more schools with low rankings. (Continue Reading)

Nevada Business Journal
By: Patrick R. Gibbons

The majority of Nevada’s low-income and minority fourth graders cannot read at grade level, says the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The Silver State also has the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation. Among minority students, not even one out of three achieves a standard diploma on time. (Continue Reading)

The State Journal-Register
By: Collin Hitt
August 13, 2010

“It’s known that states decide how many prisons to build based on third-grade reading scores. However, we as a society are not lifting a finger to change the system ... I cannot sit back and watch so many of our poor and minority children who live on the South and West Sides enter high school reading below grade level.”

So wrote the Rev. Sen. James Meeks in a September 2009 essay, in which the South Side pastor and Illinois Senate education committee chairman threw open the doors to bold, bipartisan education solutions. (Continue Reading)

St. Petersburg Times
By: Jeff Solochek
August 20, 2010

There's a debate over vouchers going on in Illinois, as a Chicago lawmaker seeks better education options for low-income children in his district.

Collin Hitt of the Illinois Policy Institute suggests that if advocates for change are serious, they need to look at Florida's reform efforts. (Continue Reading)

KMBC - ABC Kansas City
September 2, 2010

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- Kansas gubernatorial candidate Sam Brownback said he would look to emulate some of Florida's school reform efforts pushed by then Gov. Jeb Bush.

Brownback said Thursday that some of the Florida reform efforts would work well in the Sunflower State. Bush, who served two terms as Florida governor, campaigned at Johnson County Community College Thursday morning for his fellow Republican. (Continue Reading)

Deseret News
By: John Florez
August 30, 2010

Reform — organization, raising the bar, higher aspirations and investing in what you want. That was the education reform message former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush brought to Gov. Gary Herbert's Utah Commission on Educational Excellence last week.

In Bush's eight years as governor, Florida schools' ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress improved to sixth from 29th among the states. He did it by making the lowest-performing student population his priority. By doing so, he closed the achievement gap for low income and Hispanic students, who now outscore 31 other state averages. By investing in that critical mass, raising the bar with high aspirations, he was able to raise performance for the total system. In other words, a rising tide raises all boats. It's "investing in what you want," Bush said. It's applying good business practices. (Continue Reading)

Los Angeles Times
By: Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith
August 14, 2010

The fifth-graders at Broadous Elementary School come from the same world — the poorest corner of the San Fernando Valley, a Pacoima neighborhood framed by two freeways where some have lost friends to the stray bullets of rival gangs.

Many are the sons and daughters of Latino immigrants who never finished high school, hard-working parents who keep a respectful distance and trust educators to do what's best. (Continue Reading)

Los Angeles Times
Editorial
September 3, 2010

The role of test scores in evaluating teachers is a prickly and complicated issue, which is why California has been avoiding the conversation for so long. Fortunately, that procrastination is no longer possible after The Times took the bold step of analyzing standardized test scores in the Los Angeles Unified School District to see whether individual teachers appeared to be successful at raising their students' scores.

Given the current nationwide push to include test data in teacher evaluations, it was time to strip away the mystery about test scores and take a close look at what they are, what they show and don't show, and what teachers, administrators and the rest of us might learn from them. The Times' articles and online database rating nearly 6,000 elementary school teachers allow the examination to begin. (Continue Reading)