The U.S. Department of Education is shopping this Elementary and Secondary Education Act PowerPoint presentation to congressional aides this week, meant to lay out broad principles for renewing the law, now known as the No Child Left Behind Act. (Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a good preview of his ideas when he dropped by Edweek earlier this week). And if you take a look at the presentation, the broad principles are, well, pretty broad. There doesn't seem to be much in there that folks who are following Race to the Top Fund and other major Obama administration initiatives ...

Remember that student lending bill that Congress was supposed to get right on this year? You know, the one that, in the House version at least, provided all kinds of extra resources for early-childhood education, school facilities, and community colleges? Well, it's officially December, time is running out on the legislative clock ... and we haven't heard a peep from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on the lending bill. The House passed its version back in September. The reason? The health care overhaul bill, which is sucking up every ounce of the Senate's time and energy. It's tough ...

As NCLB is reauthorized, the education secretary says he envisions a significant new emphasis on incentives for high-performing schools, districts, and states.

In making their funding choices, Gates is making clear what it's view of innovation is: that charters and districts will work more collaboratively together on education reform.

The Center for Civic Education, which administers the We the People program, said the audit was "unduly harsh, unfair."

English-language learners, students in special education, and homeless students took center stage in the U.S. Department of Education's second "stakeholders" forum, held here in Washington today. These events are intended to help lay the groundwork for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This one attracted a much smaller and more subdued crowd than the first stakeholders' forum here, which featured a big speech on reauthorization from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Still, there was some interesting discussion on how the new, yet-to-be-named version of the law might do a better job measuring the achievement of these special ...

Finalists will be asked to bring a team to Washington to make one last sales pitch to the judges. Will they bring any Oprah-like celebrities?

Republicans questioned the 300,000 education jobs reported created or saved so far.

Nine rural school superintendents told the Education Secretary that most of the department's turnaround models will not work in rural communities.

Rep. David R. Obey, the Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a major architect of the stimulus law, ranted and raved yesterday in this statement about inaccurate reporting on Recovery.gov. "Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it," Obey said. "Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now." Obey may have been thinking about reports like this recent ABC news account, which found that the Obama administration scaled back their estimate - by 60,000 - of how many jobs were created under ...