In announcing that he may provide regulatory relief, Duncan is not challenging Congressional authority. He and the President are challenging Congressional sluggishness as reauthorization of the ESEA is four years overdue and there is no end in sight.

Lately, there’s been a lot of rhetoric about education reform. But too many Americans believe that the word reform means that our schools are bad. In truth, there are many good things about our system of public education. But there are many things in education that do need to change. That’s why we need to focus on transformation rather than reform.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is strangling our schools. On that fact, both Democrats and Republicans agree. Is that enough to ensure that Congress and the President will agree on terms to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as NCLB in this, the 112th Congress?

In implementing the volunteer Common Core State Standards, the greatest danger is setting our aspirations too low.

Americans love their teachers. This may surprise you given the current media storm surrounding public education. Yet 71 percent of Americans said, when asked in this year’s PDK/Gallup poll of the “Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools,” that they have trust and confidence in the men and women who teach in the public schools.

The McKinsey & Co. report, “Closing the Talent Gap: Attracting and Retaining Top-Third Graduates to Careers in Teaching,” is wrong. Fortunately, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) presents a much better alternative: a forward-looking approach to attracting and retaining great educators that recognizes the intrinsic rewards great employees crave and deserve.

I watched the movie Waiting for Superman. It is a dramatic movie, and I like many in the audience, cried at the end.

If we’re talking about recruiting better teachers, why don’t we recognize that the place to start recruiting is high school?

Often, the first question reporters ask when interviewing me about the PDK/Gallup poll results is, “What did you find most surprising?”That’s a good question because when you create new questions, you always have in your mind how you think Americans will respond. So here is my list of the most surprising results from the 2010 [...]

The Learning First Alliance (LFA), a consortium of 17 of the largest and most influential education associations gathered for its annual leadership council meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 22-23, 2010. The leadership council includes elected association officers and their CEOs and deputies. I served as chair of the LFA executive board this year, and offered [...]