Round 1 of the Race to the Top had only two winners, Delaware and Tennessee. But states that did not win can adjust their applications and reapply for Round 2 funding. Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), The Education Equality Project (EEP) and Education Reform Now have gone through each finalist's application to analyze how it might score higher in Round 2. You can check out their state-by-state analysis here.

The co-chairs of the Education Equality Project recently wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post about why RT3 and similar school reform efforts are so important even in the context of the significant challenges facing our children outside of school. "Plenty of evidence demonstrates that schools can make an enormous difference despite the challenges presented by poverty and family background," they write.

During our work on “Policy 2.0: Using Open Innovation to Reform Teacher Evaluation Systems,” the policy team heard from quite a few folks that we ought to think beyond classroom performance to pre-service indicators and differentiating among teacher preparation programs. They’re right.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that even the ideal set of pre-service indicators wouldn’t be a silver bullet – witness pro sports drafts. There are enough 1st round duds and come-from-nowhere heroes to make me wary of relying too much on pre-service stats.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be doing better, and differentiating among teacher preparation programs is a great place to start. Louisiana has been out ahead on this, and it looks like Florida is launching a new initiative.

How do I think you make it work? Include common sense checks and qualitative assessment. Especially as a program like this is getting started, I think it’s worth the money to have people on the ground backing up statistics about student achievement gains with qualitative observations.

Ensure a reasonable distribution among rating categories – labels are useless if quality within the same category varies dramatically. See New York City’s school progress reports and teacher evaluation as a whole for cautionary tales.

Educate the public and stakeholder groups with thoughtful, careful leadership. Differentiating among teacher preparation programs can be thornier than one might assume. Institutions of higher education have long histories and fierce pride. Leadership that can bring everyone to the table around common goals will increase the chances of meaningful and positive change.

What do you think is important when it comes to differentiating among teacher preparation programs? Register or Login to add your comment below!

In a speech today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will kick off a conversation about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB). By framing the law in civil rights terms, the Secretary will signal a continued commitment to federal accountability and a focus on equity. He'll also talk about improving the law and our ability to measure student achievement, including using that data to improve teacher evaluation (Draft Recommendations). Here's USA Today and the AP.

Education Week's "Politics K-12" blog reports on the new deadlines. Here's the timeline:

Late July: The Department will publish a notice of proposed rule making in the Federal Register, inviting public comment for 30 days on the proposed grant application and the criteria for evaluating the states' applications.

October: Notice inviting applications will be published in the Federal Register.

December: Phase 1 applications will be due.

March 2010: Phase 1 grants awarded, winners announced.

June 2010: Phase 2 applications will be due.

September 2010: Phase 2 grants awarded, winners announced.

Anecdotal support for the research that teachers are the ones bringing technology into the class rooms -- we should encourage our teachers (when we get them) to share their cool projects, tech or not, on their blogs here

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/education/31blog.html?_r=2&src=sch

LA CENTER, Ky. (AP) — Sixth-grade social studies students at Ballard County Middle School know what time it is in Afghanistan and what the weather is like there on a given day.

The students have become acquainted with the country though Aaron Connor, a Ballard Memorial High School graduate now serving near Ghazni City, Afghanistan, with the Illinois National Guard. Mr. Connor answers the students’ questions through a blog.

Ashley Bodell, a teacher at the middle school who graduated with Mr. Connor in 2001, arranged the correspondence between him and Cathey Seaton’s social studies classes.

A video on how teachers and students are using Google docs. Very interesting piece that I think also demonstrates the potential for us on this site.