The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation late Thursday night to help prevent teacher layoffs, despite opposition from the Obama administration, which threatened to veto the measure if it includes $800 million in cuts to its key K-12 initiatives. The legislation takes aim at three of the administration's most prized education priorities. That includes cutting $500 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, which rewards states for making progress on certain education redesign initiatives. It also would cut $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund, which doles out grants to support pay-for-performance programs, and $100 ...

Despite a veto threat from the White House, Rep. David Obey defended his proposal to cut $800 million in Obama administration education priorities to help pay for education jobs.

The Obama administration has signaled that it will veto the entire education jobs bill if the $800 million in cuts to its reform priorities remain. Here is what the administration told Congress in a statement on the edujobs bill, which the U.S. House of Representatives will consider tonight: "Since the quality of education we afford our children also is essential to our long-term strength and security, the Administration supports the proposed funding to avert the layoff of hundreds of thousands of public school teachers and deep cuts in Pell Grants that millions of students need to attend college." But ...

Imagine that you are a state education official who has spent months and months on Race to the Top, coaxing districts to sign memorandums of understanding and negotiating with union officials, tracking down data, and convincing the Gates Foundation to give you some planning money. Would you be irked that some folks in Congress want to make the pot smaller, potentially meaning fewer winners in the grant competition? Of course, the plan puts states in a bind. Many really want to see the $10 billion in funding to prevent teacher layoffs (and, folks could argue, states wouldn't need the money ...

President Obama supports jobs bill but opposes cut to signature initiative.

So, yesterday we wrote about a proposal from Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., to cut $800 million in Obama administration education priorities as part of a wider effort to provide $10 billion to thwart teacher layoffs and nearly $5 billion to fill a major shortfall in the Pell Grant program. The proposed cuts include $500 million from Race to the Top, $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund, and $100 million intended for charters. The U.S. Department of Education and some moderate Democrats are urging Obey to find other areas to cut instead. Even the Washington Post editorial board ...

Democrats who have supported education reform efforts are pushing back against a plan to divert funding already appropriated for the Race to the Top, the Teacher Incentive Fund, and charter schools to the education jobs bill. This afternoon, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., a longtime charter school supporter, sent an e-mail out urging his colleagues to sign onto a letter to Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the sponsor of the legislation and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, urging him to reconsider the cuts. Here's a snippet from Polis' letter: "Race to the Top has already led to major progress that will ...

Draft legislation appears to target a pair of high-profile programs in finding money to save education jobs.

Check out District Dossier, where my colleague Dakarai Aarons details his one-on-one interview with Microsoft and Gates Foundation founder Bill Gates. At the end, Dakarai gets to the issue that's been raised many times on this blog: whether Gates is too cozy with EdSec Arne Duncan and crew at the Education Department. Gates dismisses such talk, and says: "Arne's got a lot of different strategies. Some overlap [with the foundation's]. Some are different. I wish the world had one [education] agenda it knew would work and be embraced by teachers." Check out Dakarai's blog for more....

Those American Express commercials on the Harlem Children's Zone must really be inspiring people. A whopping 339 communities applied for relatively small one-year planning grants from the U.S. Department of Education, meant to help communities create their own Promise Neighborhoods. The new federal program, financed at just $10 million this year, is meant to help communities replicate the superstar, New York-based program's success in pairing high-quality academics with a range of support services, such as counseling and prekindergarten, in order to get kids ready for college or a career. These 339 applicants aren't even asking for a grant to ...