Despite all the work to be done in education, it is important to recognize that we've made progress and, in many ways, we're getting better outcomes now more than ever. But people like to create opportunity out of a crisis, and if there's no crisis then the next best thing is to make one up.

Under President Obama, federal spending has increased an average of 0.4% per year, the slowest increase since the Eisenhower administration. It will be interesting to see if this statistic gets played out during the campaign.

It's almost as if Jeff Flake is saying, "As a politician, I want to make there that there is not -- and never will be -- any attempt to apply evaluation of evidence, sound reasoning and logic, or other scientific principles, to the job I do. When topics are purely political -- like the study of our climate -- science should play no part."

I don't know if Representative Flake needs a speechwriter, but let's just say I'm available.

Iowa lawmakers removed $3 million in spending that would have kept Price Lab School open for another year, but left in $2.5 million in assistance for for-profit private colleges. Ugh.

This seems like a reasonable provision: the literacy provisions in Iowa's new education bill say students behind in reading at 3rd grade must either repeat the grade or enter an intensive summer reading program, neither of which the state has allocated funding for. It's a good idea for a lawmaker to add a provision to the bill that states that districts must only comply with the law if the state funds the programs.

Given all the research that shows the abundance of negative outcomes for students who are held back a grade, it's disappointing to see Iowa make this law. I admit it's a tough situation, as policies that don't go beyond either just holding students back or promoting them with their peers are likely to get the job done.

"Not a one of you has the courage to vote against chocolate!"
-- Rep. David Balmer, R-Centennial

Things appear to have gotten silly, serious, and sad tonight in the Colorado statehouse, as a Democrat-led civil unions bill was moved through committees in the final hours. Republicans countered with a fillabuster on a school nutrition bill (yielding the quote above) and a recess, meaning the civil unions bill -- as well more than 30 other bills -- won't come to a vote. The latest word from Twitter (@lynn_bartels's coverage is great) is that the fed-up gallery screamed and shouted "Shame on you!" at the legislators, leading to a clearing of the gallery.

A Christian group in Alabama is opposing charter schools out of worries that liberals might end up running the schools.

Interesting and bold statement by the Washington Post. They blame Republicans for the current state of Washington gridlock, particularly Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist. Can two people wield that kind of power? Potentially, if given enough time and a strong enough following, which both Gingrich and Norquist have.

Cool article that suggests there are a few more Watergate secrets known perhaps only to Bob Woodward.

When you ask Stephen Colbert to speak, be careful what you wish for.

This is a great story. No, not "great" as in "great," but "great" as in "you couldn't make this stuff up." With recent news about the Secret Service involved with prostitution in Columbia, it was humbling to look back at one of Lincoln's bodyguards, who (instead of protecting the president at Ford's Theater) decided to spend a few extra hours at a nearby bar -- the same one John Wilkes Booth was at before going to shoot the president.

If you didn't see the line for Obama tickets around the UMC today, here are some pictures. Ryan Grover estimated about 5,000 students at 11:00 when the doors opened. And I agree with the author: it's great to see youth who are actively interested in political and other large social issues.

I've been following this story a bit and while it's unclear exactly how this law will play out in schools, on the whole it's not likely to be good for science. Backers of the law say it's about "questioning science" and "academic freedom." Questioning science with better science is one thing, but that's not really what this law was designed to do.

After receiving complaints that teachers were not teaching "balanced" views of evolution and climate change, Tennessee becomes the 2nd state (the other is Louisiana) to pass a law protecting teachers who want to criticize scientific theories. While creationism or intelligent design aren't mentioned in the bill, scientists worry that this will lead to the "mis-teaching" of science.

Some lawmakers in Louisiana want the state to remove anti-discriminatory language requirements from charter school contracts because they never passed a law specifically requiring them.

While the news coverage has quieted, I know many at the University of Northern Iowa are still fighting to save Price Laboratory School and other valued programs from budget cuts. I sincerely hope all parties can reach a compromise; while some programs are awfully small to justify their continued existence, many others (like the lab school) serve important purposes.

I've seen about 4 different versions of this talk and I think it keeps getting better. The chapters for this video are helpful and the Q&A at the end isn't something I've seen in other videos.

Should school boards be endorsing presidential candidates? That's the question I've posed to my School and Society class, and I'm curious to see their responses.

I hate to break it to them, but the idea of "keeping a distance" from wrestlers and their fans in Des Moines during the state wrestling tournament doesn't exist. They're everywhere. My advice to the Chinese: wear green and tell everyone you're Osage fans. Most people know better than to mess with Osage fans.

An interesting and combative post by Michael Eisen (a co-founder of the Public Library of Science) accusing (with reason) Representative Carolyn Maloney of being either "a plagiarist or an Elsevier puppet."

I think Dana Goldstein summed up Obama's education portions of the State of the Union pretty well here: "long on platitudes and short on honest talk." As for the idea of making it illegal to drop out of school before you turn 18, she definitely gets it:

"...one can’t really address the drop-out crisis without making school much more engaging for low-income teenagers, whether or not they show an inclination toward making it to and through a four-year college. This means dealing head-on with curriculum, not just tinkering with how teachers are hired and fired, and by whom."

This is a transcript of an interview that appeared on Democracy Now concerning Arizona's ban on ethnic studies.

Some people think about gun rights and think about guns. Me, I personally don't care much for guns and can't imagine owning one. But when I think about why the right to bear arms was placed in our Constitution, I see guns as a piece of technology that helped preserve our freedoms. Jump forward 200+ years and the tools we have for preserving our freedom have expanded, and that's why we need to fight just as hard to keep the internet free as we've fought to preserve gun rights. If you haven't already, I encourage you to support organizations like https://www.eff.org/ and take a stand against #SOPA.

How's this for scary: "Before 2008, the zeitgeist was deregulation, and Wall Street succeeded in getting deregulation. Frank Partnoy calculated for me that in 1980, 98 percent of financial assets traded in our economy were traded subject to the normal rules of transparency, anti-fraud requirements, basic exchange-based rules of the New Deal. By 2008, 90 percent of the assets traded were traded invisibly because they were not subject to any of these basic requirements of transparency and anti-fraud exchange-based obligations.

But the really astonishing thing is that after 2008, after we suffered the biggest collapse since the Depression, after every independent analyst had said there was a link between the structure of deregulation and the collapse, after the dean of deregulation—Alan Greenspan—confessed he made a mistake in assuming that the self-interest of the banks would lead them to behave virtuously rather than behave in a way that would drive to their maximum profit, after all of that, even then, Wall Street was able to blackmail the Democrats and the Republicans into handing them essentially a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and effect no fundamental change in the architecture of our financial system. That is, frankly, terrifying."

This poster makes the phrase "attention to detail" take on whole new levels of meaning. Impressive.

As usual, Ira challenges us to view something important from a new, historically-aware perspective. While Americans have certainly struggled through tough times, Ira claims, we've never had a true revolution. If the Occupy Wall Street movement is to be a revolution, it's going to require much more than some rewrites of federal tax laws and better student loans. It's going to require major cultural change -- the kind of change that our country has so far resisted.

It seems that perhaps the fastest way to turn a public school into a for-profit school is to make it an online school. According to this post, an Ohio online charter school is making its unlicensed superintendent very wealthy.

This year I'm teaching preservice teachers for the first time and how they are preparing to enter and embattled profession has certainly crossed my mind. As Dan Liston told my class this week, "We need to be more honest about the conditions of labor." I agree, but it's not an easy conversation.

Several months ago the Colorado Department of Education requested almost $50 million for 2012-2013 (http://pinboard.in/u:downclimb/b:3cbd486004a1) so they could develop a new state test to replace the CSAP in 2014, even though multi-state tests based on the Common Core State Standards should be available by 2015. Today Governor Hickenlooper denied the extra funding. If you're hoping this means there won't be any testing in 2014, don't get your hopes up. I think the Governor just realized that it wasn't worth spending tens of millions of dollars to develop a brand-new test that might only get used for one year.

Two things are evident here: (a) Our understandings of race and affirmative action need developing, and (b) there are active members of the Republican Party attending Berkeley. I'm not so surprised by the first...

I know it's difficult to discuss certain topics in education without exposing a political ideology, but sometimes people can't help but get carried away. It's up to us to take a closer look to see what's really there -- a good thing to remember as we head into what is sure to be a heated election year.

No visualizations here, but another story about income inequality in America.

Between 1948 and 1978, the richest 10% got 32% of our country's average income growth. Between 1978 and 2008, the richest 10% got ALL of our country's average income growth.

So many good graphics here, unfortunately with a message that seems good for the very few.

After an overwhelming response to her prior CNN opinion piece (http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/20/ravitch.teachers.blamed/index.html), Diane Ravitch defends both herself and the rights of teachers.

Diane Ravitch explains the conditions for teachers that preceded the protests in Madison, As always with internet mass-media, the comments following the article are informative (and generally frustrating).

Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) is proposing that Democrats and Republicans sit together for the President's upcoming State of the Union address. I doubt it will happen, but I'd much rather see that than the typical Republicans-this-side and Democrats-that-side.

Despite my disagreement of many parts of Waiting for Superman, I came away basically liking Geoffrey Canada, the leader of the Harlem Children's Zone. This article by the NYT looks at the community efforts of the HCZ, including access to health care, safe neighborhoods, adult classes, improved housing options, and refurbished parks and playgrounds. Knowing that out-of-school factors have a greater influence on student achievement than teachers or textbooks, this community-wide approach is something that I really want to see work. But first, if changing the cycle of poverty is really the goal, we must be willing to look past test scores (which are a mess in NY, by the way) and look for broader changes over a longer period of time.

Zac Chase is one of the few non-math bloggers I follow. Read this wonderful post and understand why.

The NYT details New York's troubles with their standardized testing system. While it's not mentioned in the article, the photo shows perhaps the only entity that seems to remain unscathed from the problems: CTB/McGraw-Hill.

Aaron Pallas gives a very reasonable (as in, "voice of reason") review of "Waiting for Superman."

Any education policy maker or researcher needs to get a good handle on where public sentiment is on educational issues. The point is not to sway with public sentiment, but understand the broader picture involved with all stakeholders (and education touches most every corner of society).

Do you like low taxes? Most people do. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as too low

A great mashup of Obama and Admiral Ackbar. I'd vote for him, wouldn't you?

This article is more about facing one's own past and admitting you were wrong than anything education-specific. After several election cycles with vilification of "flip-floppers," it's refreshing to see someone confidently declare, "I was wrong and that's okay."

Our nation's history is rich with 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants who become leaders in science, politics, education, and business. Thomas Friedman makes a good argument that this tradition is a key to our future, not just our past.

Teacher's unions are the only organizations meant to represent and protect teachers, and they are being increasingly targeted as the obstacle to educational reform. Unions are far from perfect, as any attempt to find one-size-fits-all solutions typically are. But where would teachers be without them?

Quote from Diane Ravitch's new book: "Reformers imagine that it is easy to create a successful school, but it is not. They imagine that the lessons of a successful school are obvious and can be easily transferred to other schools, just as one might take an industrial process or a new piece of machinery and install it in a new plant without error. But a school is successful for many reasons, including the personalities of its leader and teachers

Diane Ravitch, once an NCLB supporter, has rethought her positions and now critiques many of the current reforms pushed by NCLB. I admire this - anyone who can commit to big ideas, reevaluate their beliefs, and publicly change their mind is someone who I can admire. (And, unfortunately, someone not well-suited for our current political climate.)

I'm not sure that Colorado's budget situation is so dire to deserve attention from Iowans, but it is informative. I'm surprised the writer didn't mention that we're dead last in education spending. TABOR advocates claim TABOR has prevented us from having California-like budget problems, but what policies have kept many other states from having California-like problems? This is where my knowledge of economics, taxes, and budgets fails me.

Science has the evolution/creationism debate, math has the "math wars," and history has the "Christian founders" debate. I wonder if Christian conservatives have a stance on the math wars? Best line of the article: "It is the most crazy-making thing to sit there and watch a dentist and an insurance salesman rewrite curriculum standards in science and history." (Kathy Miller, Texas School Board Watchdog)

While enforcement of federal drug laws have softened for medical marijuana growers, if you brag about your insanely profitable growing operation down the block from the local school, you can still expect an unfriendly visit from the DEA.

Ritter proposes 4-6% cuts to education, and says such cuts will be legal under Amendment 23, which requires education spending to increase every year by at least the rate of inflation. I smell a poorly written Amendment. It's going to be a bitter spring when schools negotiate with teachers.

I didn't know that Lyndon Johnson had been a teacher, but his experience is fascinating. As a product of a long-established, well-respected teacher ed program, I'm a little biased against some forms of alternative licensure, but Secretary Duncan has some good criticism of teacher education programs and why we need alternative pathways to the profession.

I'm impressed. I traced the map of the US many times for one of my cartography classes, but didn't give much thought to doing it freehand. Other YouTube videos show Franken doing this at regular speed (still only 3 minutes or so, while talking) and then auctioning off the finished product.

I've been incredibly frustrated reading the news and comments regarding President Obama's speech to schoolchildren coming up this Tuesday. Speechless, really, as the levels of ignorance and intolerance were practically beyond my comprehension. This blog post, however, puts the speech in context and uses it to question what we think schools are really for. Excellent read!

Al Franken does a pretty nice job here, and his fellow Minnesotans in the crowd patiently listen and politely ask questions. It's good to see such a civil debate (and to see it without a media filter) that focuses on the issue, not threats of socialism or members of the audience carrying weapons. Franken certainly doesn't have all the answers, but this is a nice representation of what politics was meant to be.

I'm still holding out hope for Chuck Grassley. He's always struck me a a no-nonsense, down-to-earth guy, and I hope ideology doesn't get in the way of earnest negotiations.

A fellow teacher (with a background in business) warned me about a year ago that we would likely "print our way out of debt." Warren Buffet warns us of that scenario in this NYT opinion piece.

How interesting that we want to change health care so doctors work for salaries, and teachers work for merit pay.

I like the fact that states are willing to work together to create common standards, instead of them being "forced" upon everybody by the US Department of Ed. I'm not sure I'm really impressed by the people chosen for the work groups. What, you can't have a single "regular" teacher on there? What about representatives from state-level departments of ed?

There's still gold in them thar' hills, and it's causing problems in Fairplay. Is it responsible for someone to mine near homes and our main source of water? Is it fair to take away someone's right to do with their land (which is zoned for mining) what they please?

Good news. I was amongst the surprised a couple years ago when I first hear it was illegal to catch raindrops in Colorado. Water is serious business, but the new laws make sense. (Lawns in many places in Colorado, however, do not.)

This is a good sign: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan allows comments on the ed.gov blog. Teacher from Texas leaves a good comment. Teacher from Texas gets call from Arne Duncan, wanting to discuss the ideas. Two-way government, powered by Web 2.0.

This is not a new idea from Friedman, but still a good one. When Iran no longer can keep its power through the sale of its oil, the theocracy has little else to keep them in charge. Low oil prices, and unfiltered connection to the rest of the world, are what Iran's citizens need to reform the country, even if it can't happen overnight.

"No Child Left Behind" was itself a rebranding of a decades-old education law, so you can only expect it to get a facelift once in a while. I've always liked the slogan "Every Child, Every Opportunity."

I watched Shirky's TED talk a couple nights ago and he explained how social media allows participants from anywhere (including repressive regimes) to use Twitter, Facebook, and other social tools to give themselves a global voice. The Iran election has proven that Shirky's hypothesis is right on, and his description of the internet being the world's first communication medium that is both 2-way and group-forming really sheds light on what we're dealing with. The video is 17 minutes long and definitely worth watching.

I find it interesting that CNN's coverage of the Iranian elections is no worse than that of MSNBC or FOX News, yet the Twitterverse today threw around #CNNfail tags like nobody's business, while rarely mentioning the other networks. I think this is a sign that we still hold CNN to a higher standard, and should be regarded as a sign of respect. (Which, unfortunately for CNN, doesn't always translate into ratings when people want infotainment instead of news.)

While watching #iranelection on Twitter today, I've seen many calls for President Obama to make some sort of statement or pledge support. I wish he could do that, but I agree with Patrick Disney of the Huffington Post, who in this article claims that the Iranian government would only use it for their own gains.

I've been following Iran election news today and while there's plenty to follow at #iranelection on Twitter, this bit about satellite interference by BBC editors caught my eye. Why block international news coverage if the elections truly were free and fair?

From SecEd Arne Duncan: "But to somehow suggest we should not link student achievement to teacher effectiveness is like suggesting we judge sports teams without looking at the box score."

NIMBY? Many in eastern Fremont County, including Florence, lean towards "YIMBY" - Yes In My Back Yard.

This article details a different kind of immigration problem, one that restricts highly-skilled computer programmers and engineers from working in the US. I understand the system is designed to preserve American jobs, but it also encourages some of the world's best and brightest to compete against American companies instead of joining them.

I admire the patience the state of Minnesota has had with their senate recount, and I think it's a sign that states learned from the Bush vs. Gore recount in 2000. That said, more than 5 months after the election, it probably is time for Minnesota to have both senators again.

Argh! A law that was designed to encourage the mixing of alternative fuels with fossil fuels is having an unintended consequence. Paper companies are taking their alternative fuels, which they've produced and used for years as part of paper-making, and are now mixing in unnecessary diesel fuel so they can collect millions in tax credits.

I agree that our students need more class time, but good luck to Mr. Duncan to find a way to make it work.

Given my fondness of President Truman and of travel writing, I think this is a book I'd enjoy. Truman is probably the last president with any chance of being a "plain, private citizen."

I've heard that catching rainwater was illegal before, and this article confirms that and explains why. It seems silly to not be able to catch rain, but 100+ years of water laws can get in the way of things.

It was great to see both NBC and CNN do features about Team USA's trip to Iran. Our mutual respect as wrestlers and love of the sport trump our political differences.