The race is on again! And this time Washington State is serious contender. A couple of months back, Congress announced new funding for Race to the Top. In total, Congress appropriated $700 million, of which a whopping $500 million is set aside specifically for early learning – the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge [...]
Obama speech tackles the status quo in education
March 7, 2011 By
President Obama visited turnaround school Miami Central High last week. In the course of two years, Miami Central High went from an F school to a C school. Miami Central received a $784,000 federal grant to get rid of the school’s principal and half of its staff members, which contributed to the school’s significant improvement. [...]
Valentines not just for lovers
February 11, 2011 By
Call The White House for Kids. Today.
January 14, 2011 By
Today is another national call-in day for early childhood education. Make a “Washington to Washington” call to tell President Obama to prioritize investments in our youngest learners. We have a new Congress ahead of us, and we must do everything we can to get them started on the right foot for young children and their [...]
Saturday Morning Post: Special session edition
December 11, 2010 By
The dye is cast. Agreement under the dome. It’s Saturday morning. I’d rather be home. The 2nd special session is in motion. HB 3225 lays out the next set of drastic cuts Washington State is making in order to begin to address out $1.1 billion deficit in the current fiscal year, and the $5.5 billion [...]
How have the stimulus funds helped education?
December 6, 2010 By
A report from Bellweather Education Partners takes a look at the impact federal stimulus funds have had on education. Remember the stimulus? It provided more than $800 billion in federal spending and tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Of that, more than $100 billion was dedicated to education. According to the report, this spending boost [...]
Dept of Education listening tour swings into Seattle
October 11, 2010 By
There’s a lot of talk lately about how we need to improve our schools and what needs to be done to accomplish that. Now the U.S. Department of Education wants to hear from those directly impacted by ed reform: students. President Obama challenged America to have the highest proportion of college graduates – whether from [...]
Education Nation: Early Learning
September 29, 2010 By
“How can our children race to the top when they are already behind at the starting line? This is the question host Matt Lauer (AKA: peanut butter) poses at the beginning of a segment on PreK on the Today Show’s week long-special on education across the nation, Education Nation – this segment aired on Monday. [...]
Ed Dept tries multi-prong approach to help kids
September 21, 2010 By
Associated Press via Education Week: Is it the family and community supports that have made the children successful? Their parents? The school? That’s the question countless studies have tried to nail down in determining how best to help students in distressed communities with perpetually failing schools. The Education Department is trying a multi-prong approach: Billion-dollar [...]
Dear Secretary Duncan…
July 9, 2010 By
Welcome to Washington!* Well, I suppose for you it’s “the other Washington,” although with temperatures like these, you might be hard pressed to tell the difference. I know you’ve also taken your fair share of heat from non-weather related events in the past week. Seems some folks aren’t very happy with Race to the Top. [...]
