Ideally, the Department wants i3 grant applications to demonstrate 20 percent private sector matching funding.

While waiting for details from a 2 p.m. media call on i3, check out Duncan on Colbert last night.

Watch Comedy Central at 11:30 p.m. EDT.

Happy Friday! Check out these good reads: The always-vigilant Eduflack reports on the time-line for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, aka No Child Left Behind. Apparently, it's coming sooner than you think. Edweek's own Steve Sawchuk of Teacher Beat fame reports on the House Education and Labor Committee's hearing on teacher quality. Apparently there were some back-and-forth between Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the panel's chairman, and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, plus some bipartisan support for the Teacher Incentive Fund, which doles out grants for performance pay programs. Check out the hearing for yourself here. Speaking of ...

Kevin Jennings, was appointed to his job at the helm of the U.S. Department of Education's office of safe and drug free schools more than three months ago, amid criticism from some socially conservative groups that sought to derail the appointment. Now, some controversial statements he made years ago to a gay student are stirring up those critics once again. Warren Throckmorton, a conservative psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, and an independent blogger, recently posted an audio interview on his Web site, in which Jennings recounts that while he was a high school teacher he told ...

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, a former Denver schools chief, has taken the slot on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee made vacant by the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennnedy, D-Mass. Bennet's move has got to be good news for Democrats who support policies such as alternative pay and charter schools (including these folks). They have high hopes that Bennet, with his real-world, on-the-ground experience, could help fill the void on education issues in the Senate created by Kennedy's passing. Bennet, who seems particularly interested in teacher quality, is said to be one of the Obama administration's Senate ...

States are still waiting for the final rules for the $4 billion Race to the Top grant program, which is meant to reward states for helping to close the achievement gap. In the meantime, the U.S. House of Representatives has taken the concept (big, highly coveted pot of competitive money that the feds can use to prod states to adopt certain policies) and gone all P-16 with it. Using some of the $87 billion in projected savings that would be freed up by a major overhaul to the student loan program, the House is looking to create three new ...

Join us for an online chat today at 2 p.m. about the common standards movement, now being undertaken by 48 states.

For the first time ever, gambling revenue is down in states by 2.8 percent. And that has implications for K-12.

More than 200 advocates from a wide range of groups packed the U.S. Department of Education today to hear Secretary of Education Arne Duncan outline his priorities for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act -- better known over the last eight years as the No Child Left Behind Act. Duncan didn't say anything he hasn't said before, but he used the high-profile forum to stress some priorities, including extended learning time, using data to track student and teacher effectiveness, and systems to better measure individual student progress. (That's code for growth models, which are expected to ...