Morning Announcements: September 9, 2010
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to invest up to $250 million over the next eight years to develop "next-generation instructional tools" that will help states and districts implement the common core state standards, the foundation said in its annual report.
Some charter schools are struggling to tap into the federal money provided by the Education Jobs Fund bill because their teachers are employees of a charter management organization or an educational management organization, not a school district according to Education Week.
According to the Sacramento Bee, California charter schools are growing in popularity.
When every teacher is rated 'great,' students suffer, according to the USA Today editorial board. Click here to read the opposing view by A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
In today's Wall Street Journal, columnist William McGurn writes, "When it comes to shaking up the status quo, however, the most potent education reform may be the one that's too often considered a side issue: pension reform."
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While the $3.5 billion Race to the Top program has captured the attention of much of the education world, a smaller grant program might have an equal if not greater impact on schools across the United States. On September 2, 


While 36 states plus the District of Columbia have moved to adopt the common core state standards, to fundamentally improve teacher and leader effectiveness, the federal government will need to provide support for their implementation. Setting standards is only the first step in an improvement process; states must implement assessments that measure whether students are meeting the standards, develop or acquire curricular materials aligned to the standards, and, most importantly, must prepare teachers to teach to the new standards. The federal government can have an important role in improving teacher education by leveraging resources and creating incentives to enable states to develop systems consistent with expectations for student learning. 