In a speech to state lawmakers and education leaders, the education secretary offered a glimpse into his thoughts for the future.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the NEA, are holding an event today at a middle school in Prince George's County, Maryland, that is trying out one of the four, controversial school improvement models spelled out in the regulations for the School Improvement Grants. On the surface, this seemed like one more photo-op to dispel the notion that the administration is locking heads with unions over education redesign efforts. That seems to be a big public relations push for both the unions and department right now, culminating in a big Union Collaboration ...

Schools and states found it hard to combine satisfy the ARRA's goals of both education redesign and economic development, Bellwether Education Partners finds.

The lame-duck Congress is still grappling with what kind of spending plan to hammer out for fiscal year 2011.

Officials say they want to take "lessons learned" from i3 and Race to the Top and apply them for a review of all of the agency's competitive grant program, including the Teacher Incentive Fund and School Improvement grants.

Some high priority education programs are still awaiting congressional action in the lame-duck session.

The dismal economic climate may well represent "new normal" for schools, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank. That means schools are going to have to make hard choices, Duncan said. And he's hoping they'll use the opportunity fundamentally rethink long-held ideas, such as the need for students to have a certain amount of "seat time" in each particular class, class size, and teacher pay scales that reward educators for getting advanced degrees. Duncan is hoping that school administrators won't cut areas that directly impact the ...

NEA wants regulatory relief from some of NCLB's requirements. The union sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan asking for flexibility in key areas.

Melody Barnes, who leads President Barack Obama's Domestic Policy Council, told an audience at an Education Week event today that reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is going to be a "top" priority in the new year.

A survey asks inside-the-Beltway folks and state edu-bigwigs what they think about the political landscape for education in the wake of the midterm elections.