Morning Announcements: October 12, 2010

On Sunday, 16 school district chiefs, including New York’s Joel Klein and Washington’s Michelle Rhee published a manifesto entitled how to fix our schools in the Washington Post.

The Associated Press reports on a new analysis that finds states appropriated almost $6.2 billion for four-year colleges and universities between 2003 and 2008 to help pay for the education of students who didn't return for year two.

In an op-ed in the Charlotte Observer, Erskine Bowles, outgoing president of the University of North Carolina system, writes, “Ineffective teaching hurts our students - and ultimately, it hurts all of us” and points to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as an example of best practices.

On Monday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced the creation of a program that will provide grants to organizations to expand the reach of their education technology initiatives. Education Week blogger Ian Quillen reports that the Next Generation Learning Challenges program is releasing its first in a series of requests to solicit funding proposals for technology initiatives, with the first round focused specifically on postsecondary education.