For those intent on deriding the Kansas City School District at every turn, the idea of charter schools is often an appealing alternative ... Having more strong school options in a community saves taxpayer money. Promoters of National School Choice Week cited data by the Alliance for Excellent Education.

New Hampshire schools have retired a century old education standard, replacing it with a new performance-based learning model ... During a webinar moderated by President of the Alliance for Excellent Education and Former Governor of West Virginia Bob Wise, panelists including Deputy Commissioner Paul Leather from the New Hampshire Department of Education (NHDOE), Principal Brian Stack from Sanborn Regional High School, and Erica Stofanak from Spaulding High School discussed the findings of a new report issued by the Alliance titled "Strengthening High School Teaching and Learning in New Hampshire's Competency-Based System."

The Education Department reported today that the graduation rate at public high schools is the highest since 1974 ... Bob Wise is president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. He says Wall Street and Main Street will love these new graduation numbers, because our economy depends so much on consumer spending. We need more of those $20-an-hour graduates.

The U.S. public high-school graduation rate climbed to a 35-year high in 2010, according to new federal data, although U.S. high-school students are still struggling to keep up with their international peers ... "The country has finally woken up to the dropout crisis and what it really means to the individual and to the economy," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a nonprofit that advocates for polices to help improve high schools, such as more-rigorous curricula. "The best economic stimulus package is a diploma."

In an ideal world, students would advance or tarry based on their fluency with the material. Kids who mastered the material quickly would leap ahead. Struggling peers would stay a bit longer ... I am sharing a statement from the Alliance for Excellent Education on New Hampshire’s competency-based learning approach, which is getting a lot of attention:  The alliance is holding a webinar today at 2 p.m. on New Hampshire’s program.

U.S. students graduated from public high schools at the highest rate since the 1970s, with the largest leap for Hispanic students, government data show ... Wise’s Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington - based advocacy group focused on improving graduation rates, estimates that the 1.3 million high school dropouts from the Class of 2010 cost the U.S. economy $337 billion in lost wages over their lifetime.

Businesses have a vested interest in their communities ... The Alliance for Excellent Education’s Bob Wise points out, “Ask any retailer whether their future depends on consumers earning a high school dropout’s $9 per hour or the $20 per hour of postsecondary achievement.”

In schools today, Black students get suspended at a rate that is more than triple the rate of their White classmates ... According to a study by The Alliance for Excellent Education increasing male graduation rates by 5 percent can save taxpayers nearly $5 billion annually in societal and economic costs associated with crime.

John D. Rockefeller IV, scion of a wealthy New York family and known simply as “Jay,” changed political parties and home states in the turbulent 1960s to launch a successful career in West Virginia politics, one he is ending when his fifth term in the U.S. Senate is up two years from now ... Bob Wise, a one-term governor, now serving as president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, said Rockefeller has earned the right to devote more time to his family after all he achieved to advance others.

More than 39 million Americans 16 and older lack a high school diploma, according to the 2010 U.S. Census ... Daily, about 7,000 students drop out of high school – about 1.3 million per year, according to advocacy group Alliance for Excellent Education.