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. They [...]
Tag Archives: Federal education reform
Dear Secretary Duncan…
Big $$$ for turnarounds
How can we improve achievement in our lowest-performing schools? Wouldn’t we all like to know. The federal government would like to know bad enough that it’s giving states $3.5 billion in School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to try to turn things around in our struggling schools.
The SIG program was originally authorized under the No Child Left [...]
Obama: college/career-ready standards linked to federal $
President Obama today shared with the nation’s governors his plan to include college- and career-ready standards in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind).
Here are the bulleted policiesObama and his educrew would like to see integrated into ESEA:
“Require all states to adopt and certify that they have college- and career-ready [...]
If you were hiding under a rock last night, you missed two great things.
1) Obama stated his commitment to making community colleges across the country more affordable
2) the Bus held Olympia in a Can (part 1 of 3)!
The first three weeks of the legislative session have been a whirlwind of topics: the budget, pre-kindergarten, the budget, race to the top, umm the budget, new revenue sources, and did [...]
SBE adopts accountability framework legislation
The State Board of Education adopted legislation related to its accountability framework today in a special meeting in Olympia.
The approved legislation now goes to the Legislature for its approval during the 2010 session beginning next week. If passed by the Legislature the SBE will implement a system of identifying and assisting low-performing schools and districts, [...]
The House passes the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act!
Hooray!
Thanks to your hard work, the House of Representatives has passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act by a vote of 253-171!
Struggling to come up with the cash for college? House leadership, with the Obama administration’s support, wants to cut out the middle man from federal student loan programs and give students the [...]
A strong case for including early learning in Race to the Top
If you are reading our blog, chances are you know that we support our state applying for a federal Race to the Top (RTT) grant. Call us fanboys if you want – but we have a historic opportunity to use federal ARRA funds and expertise to accelerate and expand state reforms. The 2009 education reform [...]
Education is hot, debt is not.
Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article stating that student loan borrowing grew 25% in the last year (and has been steadily rising for some time now). “Today, two-thirds of college students borrow to pay for college, and their average debt load is $23,186 by the time they graduate.” For many of us, this [...]
July 28 conference call
We hosted a conference call about the current education landscape Tuesday night. Many thanks to those of you who joined us. For those that missed it, we now have a recording of the call. Since it’s a 4MB file, we recommend you email the link rather than the actual file.
Also, to help you follow along, [...]
Step-Up and Make Your Voices Heard: Urge your legislator to vote yes on SAFRA
This fall, I’ll be entering my senior year of college at a private school in North Carolina. Fortunately, my parents started saving for my college tuition before I was born and I have not had to worry about paying for school (thanks Mom and Dad!). However, for most college-age students this is not the case-they [...]
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Speakers Series
Opening Event:
Kevin Johnson
Mayor of Sacramento & Founder of St. HOPE
Thursday, October 7 at 7pm
Mount Zion Baptist Church
Register today >>>