The author reports on House and Senate bills that take different stances toward funding formula-grant programs and Obama administration initiatives. Key education programs, including Title I grants for disadvantaged students and aid for special education, would get flat funding for the 2012 fiscal year under a measure approved Sept. 21 by the…

As peer reviewers for the U.S. Department of Education begin to comb through the thousands of pages of applications for $4 billion in federal Race to the Top Fund grants, they'll be under pressure to determine which are most worthy of funding: those that promise the most, or those with the best chance of delivering. In a competition whose criteria…

Teachers' unions in at least two states are threatening to withhold endorsements of their states' Race to the Top applications, which could jeopardize the states' chances of winning the coveted federal dollars. In a letter printed as an advertisement in the Tallahassee Democrat, Florida Education Association President Andy J. Ford discouraged…