I’m voting for Adriana Bohm for Red Clay School Board. In a time when public education is below par, she refuses to accept mediocrity ... According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, when Delaware students reach eighth grade, 69 percent of them read below grade level.

President Obama kicked off his “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tour” Thursday with a visit to Manor New Tech High School in Manor, Texas, where he met some of the students that will help make up the 1 million new graduates he hopes to see in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) over the next decade ... But whether Obama gets all the dollars he wants or not, schools – and even some whole school districts such as in Sacramento, Calif. – that follow principles similar to those of the New Tech Network are springing up all around the country “because the workforce is demanding these skills,” says Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, which promotes improvements in high schools.

After teaching math at Kate Bond Middle School all day, Fran Wilson went to Kennedy Park Wednesday afternoon to cheer on the girls’ softball team — and make lesson plans in her head ... Daily crime stat: About 75 percent of America’s state prison inmates, and about 70 percent of people in jail, did not finish high school. (Source: Alliance for Excellent Education).

As President Obama and the U.S. Congress wrestle with deficit reduction and seek a long-term solution for robust economic growth, I encourage them not to overlook the positive economic impact of a quality and equitable education for all students ... A recent Alliance for Excellent Education report, Inseparable Imperatives: Equity in Education and the Future of the American Economy, demonstrates how increasing the education outcomes of students of color and Native students can boost the economy in the form of higher earnings, job creation, and increased consumer spending.

Thirty years ago this week, President Ronald Reagan's administration released "A Nation at Risk," a report warning of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in American public education ... Bob Wise, a congressman from West Virginia in 1983 who later became governor, says the report came along "at a time when we were facing real global competition," he says.

Not 50th, not 49th. First for a welcome change ... Last week Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and former Gov. Bob Wise announced that the West Virginia Board of Education and the state will be partnering with the Alliance for Excellent Education to begin a statewide review of classroom technology use and digital learning capabilities.

Even as books take a back seat to technology, reading is more important than ever in an increasingly complicated, information-rich world ... esearchers already have determined some scientifically sound practices, summarized in "Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy," a pivotal report coauthored by Snow and released by the Alliance for Excellent Education in 2004.

The good news in Iowa is that most of our young people are staying in school and we have one of the highest high school graduation rates in the nation ... The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that cutting the number of dropouts in Iowa by half would lead to a $45 million increase in the gross state product and $3.8 million in increased annual state tax revenue.

The Common Core State Standards initiative recently received more pushback, this time from the Republican national Committee and a Republican senator, who see the content standards as overreach by the federal government and call for the restoration of state-level education decision ... "The irony is folks at the federal level would send a "message that they don't like state-led initiatives, which is what Common Core was," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia.

Schools across the state will integrate technology and digital learning into all classrooms, thanks to the state's partnership with Project 24 ... Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin joined former Gov. Bob Wise, who now works for the Alliance for Excellent Education, which oversees Project 24, to announce the partnership April 17.