The U.S. Department of Education has quietly invited states and schools using the most popular of four school improvement models to apply for some extra time to figure out the trickiest component of the federal turnaround strategy.

In case you've been living under a rock, the D.C. metropolitan area just experienced a 5.8 magnitude earthquake. Naturally, this has major implications for K-12 policy that are best explored through Twitter.

States seeking some of the $500 million in new Race to the Top money have until Oct. 19 to say how they will improve early education programs through new standards, assessments, and rating systems.

In this Q-and-A with author Steven Brill, he questions whether Hawaii and New York deserved their Race to the Top awards.

Texas gets a mixed report card on class sizes, funding, and college- and career-ready standards. But things aren't as bad as US. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his staff considered several options as they tried to put Louisiana and Colorado in the Race to the Top winners' circle, the author says, even though the outside judges had scored them too low.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, unequivocally and in no uncertain terms, said today that states absolutely do not have to participate in Common Core in order to qualify for one of the department's to-be-determined NCLB waivers.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan feels "very, very badly" for the children in Texas, where Republican Gov. Rick Perry has pushed through policies that have raised class sizes and cut funding, according to an interview Duncan gave on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt" airing Aug. 19- 20.

Some light beach reading for Politics K-12 readers soaking up the last couple weeks of summer: Eduwonk has some absolutely priceless back-and-forth between Diane Ravitch, and Simon & Shuster, the publishers of Class Warfare, Steven Brill's recent book on K-12 politics. If you haven't already, check out this very interesting profile of Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a Republican presidential candidate. There's a lot in there on education, including on the charter school that she started for at-risk kids in Minnesota. The school nearly lost its charter because it embraced a religious viewpoint. Bachmann and another founder eventually resigned, and the ...

Montana gets to reset its proficiency targets so more schools make adequate yearly progress this year, under a deal reached with the U.S. Department of Education.