Happy Friday! While you wait for the weekend to begin, check out these newsy bits you may have missed this week.

Under Rep. Steve Israel's new bill, the federal role in federal testing would shrink.

Malloy sent a letter to Duncan, saying that he wants to "start a dialogue" between the feds and Connecticut on ways to "reduce the testing burden."

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., put a hold on the Child Care and Development Block Grant bill because he wants priority given to his bill that would require background checks on school employees.

In the second showing of bipartisanship on education bills this week, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed an education research bill on voice vote.

In a wide-ranging interview during his recent back-to-school bus tour, the education secretary discussed a variety of topics and highlighted some of his top priorities.

At least 17 waiver recipients say they are likely to take the U.S. Department of Education up on its recent offer to postpone using student achievement data in teacher evaluations this school year.

That means the districts—including Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Sanger, and Santa Ana Unified School Districts—have some work to do if they want to keep their waiver in the 2015-16 school year and beyond.

States and districts may be somewhat weary of competitive grants, but the early childhood education money seems to be garnering a lot of interest.

After months of negotiations, lawmakers struck a bipartisan, bicameral deal to update the Child Care and Development Block Grant.