One state at a time, the push for common school graduation standards has been gaining traction. In just five years, the number of states with such standards for college and career-readiness has increased from three to 31...“There is a role for the federal government, but the role is to look at where to assist, not where to direct,” said former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise, head of a group called the Alliance for Excellent Education.

NCLB’s accountability framework needs updating to recognize the state-led movement toward more rigorous standards and improved assessments while maintaining accountability for results. With the start of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the excitement that accompanies “March Madness” has already taken hold in the education world thanks to two prominent reform efforts—the Race to the Top and the state-led common core standards initiative.

Just days after the nation’s governors, state commissioners of education, school administrators and education experts proposed draft common core standards for K12 in English and math, major education groups responded. The National Education Association, the National School Boards Association and the Alliance for Excellent Education tout the new standards as promoting 21st-century skills of collaborating, problem solving and critical thinking. “This will be a Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” says Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education.

A new guide by the Alliance for Excellent Education is intended to help rural parents determine if their high school is adequately preparing students to graduate and for success in college and careers.

More than a quarter of Indiana high school graduates enter state universities or community colleges unprepared for higher learning, needing at least one remedial course on material they should have learned in high school, according to a new report...“Certainly, remediation is a huge problem around the country,” said Jason Amos, a spokesman for the Alliance for Excellent Education.

The Obama administration on Saturday called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape divisive provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing...“This’ll be controversial,” said Bob Wise, a former West Virginia governor who leads the Alliance for Excellent Education, a nonprofit group. “They’re trying to change about 40 years of established formula funding and to change an accountability system that a lot of people are wedded to because it’s forced us to come to grips with the achievement gap.”

The final draft of the Common Core State Standards Initiative 's K-12 English/language arts and math standards is now in the hands of stakeholders who will get one last chance to sound off on the ambitious effort to develop a voluntary national standard..."The accountability framework needs to be updated to recognize the state-led movement toward higher, common standards and improved assessments while maintaining accountability for results," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education .

It was late, and they were tired. But before the House of Delegates Health and Human Resources Committee could agree to adjourn, committee members had to put it to a vote...Among the challenges still facing state leaders: One in four West Virginia students will not graduate from high school within four years, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education.

If you don't live or work here in Washington, it could be hard to wrap your head around the intense inside-the-Beltway mentality that shapes dialogue around here. But since our office is inside that Beltway, for better or worse, it came as no surprise that I was inundated with official statements yesterday about the first public draft of the common standards...See statements from Achieve, the Business Roundtable, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the National Association of State Boards of Education.

North Carolina's latest report on dropouts held this welcome news: The rate of dropouts declined last year to its lowest rate ever recorded - 4.27 percent...The nonpartisan Alliance for Excellent Education last year calculated the impact of dropouts on the Charlotte region and noted these economic costs: $36 million in lost earnings per year, $25 million in potential spending that businesses won't see, $5 million in potential tax revenues that won't be collected.