The NEA is putting its formidable get-out-the-vote and campaigning efforts behind five high-priority U.S. Senate races and 22 House races.

Education, which is usually pretty low on the list of hot campaign issues, is getting some traction in this congressional midterm-election season. President Barack Obama appears to have incorporated the charge that Republicans would cut education spending by 20 percent into his current stump speech. GOP leaders have said that's not the case. And the White House has planned a high-profile event touting the administration's accomplishments on community colleges, which some see as the latest and greatest economic engine. Now education is even coming up in some campaign commercials. The latest example? The Colorado Senate race, which probably wins the ...

Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., who has made school finance a signature issue during his time in Congress, thinks that salary comparability is an idea whose time has come. And he says he has support from leaders on the House Education and Labor Committee, to include it the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. What exactly is salary comparability? Well, in a nutshell, it's a way of assuring that Title I schools with a large number of newer, lower-salaried teachers get their fair share of federal funding. Right now, districts don't have to count teachers' actual salaries in ...

Auditors took a look at the department's work in pushing the $53.6 billion in state stabilization funding, the largest single program in the stimulus, out the door.

Supporters of the Race to the Top program have reasons to both cheer and jeer at Congress this week.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced today that the department will allocate $50 million in grants to top-notch charter management organizations to help them expand their reach. This is the first time the feds have specifically sought to help good charters replicate their efforts. Twelve charter management organizations made the cut. The lucky dozen: *Achievement First: Will get $1.67 million to create 14 new schools and expand two schools in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island *Aspire: Will get $5.58 million to create 15 new schools in California. *Foundation for a Greater Opportunity: Will get nearly $1.5...

The two consortia that won grants from the U.S. Department of Education to create more uniform assessments are getting some extra cash to complete their work, the department announced today. The two winners, which collectively represent 44 states and the District of Columbia, will split $31.7 million. The money is aimed at helping the consortia with the implementation of the new assessment systems. In order to get the extra funding, the consortia will have to sketch out how they plan to transition to the new assessments. Their plans could address professional development needs, and how the two consortia ...

President Barack Obama told a crowd in New Mexico today that a Republican Congress would seek to cut education spending in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Republicans say, not so fast.

The Education Department is particularly interested in recruiting teachers for high-need schools and to fill STEM, special education, and ELL positions.

So, chances are you've probably heard about the new push to put K-12 education front-and-center on the national agenda, through the documentary "Waiting for Superman" (which got airtime on "Oprah", a major public platform if there ever was one) and through NBC's "Education Nation", which features a whole lot of edu-hoopla, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on "Meet the Press", a 30-minute interview with President Barack Obama on education, and a teacher town hall meeting. The NBC effort is funded in part by some of the same foundations that tried to steer the conversation to education in the 2008 ...