After more than a year of heated campaigning, President Barack Obama remains in the White House, Democrats continue to control the U.S. Senate, and Republicans are still in charge of the House of Representatives--leaving unchanged a political landscape that has paralyzed congressional action on education policy and led the president to flex his…

Three big-city districts--Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York--have terminated federal grants aimed at promoting performance-based compensation plans and professional development for teachers and principals. Overall, the 2010 Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants to the three districts would have provided an $88 million payout over five years--nearly 7…

Emergency training programs aimed to prepare schools for events like Columbine are losing their funding amid budget cuts. "Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools" grants from the federal office of safe and drug-free schools, has evaporated. After paying for hundreds of school districts to prepare for a Columbine-like event, the roughly…

Almost two years into the federal Race to the Top program, states are spending their shares of the $4 billion prize at a snail's pace--a reflection of the challenges the 12 winners face as they try to get ambitious education improvement plans off the ground. Through the end of March, the 11 states and the District of Columbia had spent just 14…

Two years after the U.S. Department of Education awarded $650 million in Investing in Innovation grants, some of the winners are still facing financial uncertainty. Other grantees have also encountered problems with matching funds coming through, and some nonprofit grantees have been forced to contribute their own money to match the initial…

Two years after Congress made the federal government's largest one-time investment in the nation's public schools, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--the economic-stimulus package--has prevented massive teacher layoffs, spurred states to devise sweeping education overhaul plans, and invigorated the national conversation about turning…

The author reports on the federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 in which President Barack Obama singled out education as an area crucial to the country's economic future. He called for bolstering programs he deems critical to his vision for a renewed Elementary and Secondary Education Act and proposed new ones in research, early-childhood…

More than a dozen education programs--including high-profile efforts focused on literacy, teaching, and learning--face the prospect of a permanent federal funding loss after they were chopped from a stopgap spending measure signed into law by President Barack Obama last week. The temporary spending law, intended to keep the government running…

A hefty body of evidence documents the phenomenon of "summer learning loss," but consensus on the attributes of effective summer intervention, especially when it comes to access to high-quality teaching for students most at risk of falling behind, is only starting to emerge. Now, though, a handful of districts are beginning to wrestle with the…

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives appear determined to make deep cuts to education and related programs in the temporary spending bill that would keep the federal government operating for the rest of the fiscal year, even as President Barack Obama seeks a modest funding boost next year. That sets up a fiscal face-off in the…

The massive flow of federal funding into schools has created a new and unfamiliar political dynamic in state elections this fall, with many candidates voicing concerns about the government involvement while acknowledging its role in saving jobs, propping up budgets, and supporting innovations in education. State elected officials have a long…

This 19th annual edition of "Quality Counts" takes a broad look at the issues and forces shaping the discussion around early-childhood education. It examines how new academic demands and the push for accountability are changing the nature of early-childhood education for school administrators, teachers, and children alike. Reporters…

The Obama administration's proposal to revamp the signature yardstick used to measure schools' progress under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is being seen as a bold step toward revising a key feature of the law, even as questions loom about how a new system would work. Under the plan, adequate yearly progress (AYP)--the…

Federal education officials will face a variety of obstacles in running a $650 million innovation fund, from an expected flood of applications and concern about favoritism in picking winners, to skepticism about the government's ability to drive innovative change in education. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education--which last month offered…

The deadline pressure states faced in submitting applications in the federal Race to the Top competition is now being felt at the local level, as school districts scurry to craft work plans that show how they will execute ambitious changes in education policy. Eleven states, plus the District of Columbia, have won a combined $4 billion this year…