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President Barak Obama’s State of the Union address has drawn a mixed response from players in the education community. I imagine all appreciate the president’s focus on education as an important issue, and approve of his connecting it to broader American self-interest with talk of jobs and competitiveness in worldwide markets. Likewise, few would disagree with Obama’s emphasis on long-term investment in education, parental involvement in children's learning, the shared responsibility of schools and their communities, recruiting more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers, and the need to overhaul No Child Left Behind. It’s also refreshing that he pointed out teachers are the most important school-based factor in a child’s success; he emphasized the greater importance of parents (and though research more specifically shows the influence of socio-economic status, these two categories are related). His talk of curbing the reach of the federal government was also encouraging to many, although his actual policy emphases related to Race to the Top and other competitive funding measures seem to counter this rhetoric.

Many are concerned with federal oversight of schools, as well as competitive allocation of funds. In a statement responding to the State of the Union Address, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten discussed the need to protect children from struggling segments of the population. Likewise, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel expressed his continued concern that “competitive grants such as ...

President Obama has set the goal that the United States will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. To help Americans understand how our country is progressing towards that goal, and to provide an accessible and transparent view of the nation’s education system as a whole, the U.S. Department of Education has launched a new resource: The United States Education Dashboard (http://dashboard.ed.gov).

The Dashboard features 16 key indicators of the state of American education. Taken together, they are intended to provide a complete picture, from cradle (3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool) to career (students completing a bachelor’s degree within 6 years from their initial institution), of education in this country. It includes information on performance, equity, teachers and leaders and more.

The Dashboard also offers a state-level look at education, providing information on these indicators for ...

A recent Washington Post article on a vote in Wake County (NC) to end the district’s socioeconomic school integration plan and return to neighborhood schools has lit up the blogosphere. National observers ranging from Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert have expressed concern (or to be fair to Colbert, "support") about the potential for the policy to resegregate the county's schools – and give rise to the problems accompanying segregated schools. Low-performing schools in low-income neighborhoods. High-performing schools in high-income neighborhoods. The best teachers flocking to schools in high-income neighborhoods. This would greatly change the educational landscape in the county, where currently some of the best schools are in the poorest neighborhoods - and 94% of parents are satisfied with their child's school.

Many in the media have focused on school board member John Tedesco’s controversial statement:

"If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we ...

Community support for schools is a crucial issue, especially in light of the current negativity toward public schools by the media, and severe funding limits on the national, state, and local level. It is timely then that during a recent meeting, members of the Learning First Alliance heard from Jamie Vollmer—head of Vollmer, Inc., a public education advocacy firm—who discussed ideas from his most recent book, Schools Cannot Do It Alone: Building Public Support for America’s Public Schools. He focused on the idea of local level community engagement for building school support.

Clearly educators face many challenges and have to work under numerous limitations (money, time, and demographic realities of schools, among others). But Vollmer argues there is a largely unexploited factor that can work to schools’ advantages: the malleability of local communities to accepting area educators as legitimate forces for good.

He asserts that by effectively targeting community members and informing them on how it is in their own self-interest to have good public schools, educators can gain the community support that is so vital to school issues.

To do so, Vollmer proposes that educators reach out using two tracks: a formal track that focuses on community groups, and an informal one that takes place through every day interactions. The formal track should take place “on the communities’ turf and ...