Article Source: CS Monitor

The report card aims to highlight the sorts of innovations in education – such as an extended school day – that lead to better schools.

If states truly want to improve their education systems, they need to do away with the rules, regulations, and bureaucracies that stymie innovation.That's one message from a new report that measures states on how well they foster education innovation, grading them in areas ranging from finance and school management to how well they hire effective teachers and remove ineffective ones.

Ultimately, say the report's authors, they hope not to prescribe new fads or "silver bullet" solutions, but to highlight the sorts of innovations that are leading schools where they need to go.

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Article Source: The Denver Post

WASHINGTON — Sens. John McCain and Michael Bennet want to put more battlefield veterans in classrooms as teachers, teaming up as a seasoned senator with military expertise and a freshman lawmaker who was superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

"Our military is the strongest in the world not because of our weapons or tanks but because of the men and women who serve in its ranks," said Bennet, who spoke first at the news conference after McCain passed on the traditional prerogative of seniority.

"What we should be saying is if you want to continue to serve your country, there is a place for you in the classroom," he said.

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Article Source: MSNBC.com - AP

Gates Foundation tries to sway how government spends billions on schools

WASHINGTON - The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates.The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been the biggest player by far in the school reform movement, spending around $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education.

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Article Source: CS Monitor

A new study looked at student performance in all 50 states since 2002, when No Child Left Behind Act took effect. The focus: achievement gaps for minority and low-income students.

The news from a major new education study is encouraging: Student achievement is going up, and the gaps in test scores between subgroups – such as between African-Americans and whites – are closing across all grade levels and subjects. "This is good news for the country," says Jack Jennings, president of CEP, noting that the United States has been trying to address the achievement gap for more than 10 years. "All that now seems to be bearing fruit.... It shows that if we concentrate on something for a long enough period of time, we can have good results."

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