On July 29, the Alliance for Excellent Education hosted the latest in its series of interactive webinars on what is happening in Washington, DC on education reform. During the webinar, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance and former governor of West Virginia, talked about President Obama's proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget increase in discretionary spending for the U.S. Department of Education. If enacted, the increase (7.5 percent) would be the largest since FY 2002—right after NCLB was signed into law. Other topics discussed included the likelihood of the U.S. Department of Education receiving President Obama's proposed budget increase; how much the congressional committees allocated for Title I, IDEA, and other education programs; and federal funding that's available to middle and high schools.

On July 15, 2010 the Alliance for Excellent Education and the National Association of Secondary School Principals cohosted a discussion about the role of school leaders in turning around low-performing schools. The MetLife Foundation-NASSP Breakthrough Schools project identifies, showcases, and recognizes middle and high schools that are high achieving or dramatically improving student achievement while serving large numbers of those students most at risk of dropping out. Brentwood High School and Tefft Middle School have been recognized by the Breakthrough Schools project as schools that have exemplified the core areas of collaborative leadership, personalization, and access to a rigorous and differentiated curriculum for all students.

Improving the quality of public high schools through the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is a voting issue for over eight in ten voters, according to a new national poll released on July 14, 2010 by the Alliance for Excellent Education. The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research and Consulting for the purpose of gaining insight into Americans' views of the public education system, the concern over the growing problems with the nation’s high schools, and the urgency to enact meaningful education reform through reauthorization of ESEA. At the event, Governor Bob Wise, president of the Alliance, was joined by pollsters Celinda Lake and Christine Matthews to discuss the results of the survey.

Improving the quality of public high schools through the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is a voting issue for over eight in ten voters, according to a new national poll released on July 14, 2010 by the Alliance for Excellent Education. The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research and Consulting for the purpose of gaining insight into Americans' views of the public education system, the concern over the growing problems with the nation’s high schools, and the urgency to enact meaningful education reform through reauthorization of ESEA. At the event, Governor Bob Wise was joined by pollsters Celinda Lake and Christine Matthews to discuss the results of the survey.

The Alliance for Excellent Education (the Alliance) recently published two documents to help education leaders and policymakers understand these issues better. The Online Learning Imperative: A Solution to Three Looming Crises in Education is a brief that describes the three crises confronting the nation and suggests ways that online learning can lead the U.S. education system out of them. The “Online Learning: Addressing Challenges and Seizing Opportunities” state profiles present state-specific information about the three crises in each state, online-learning opportunities in that state, the presence of state policies that support online learning, and how federal policy supports online learning in that state. On July 8 the Alliance hosted a webinar to release the two publications and facilitated a conversation among experts using questions submitted by participants from the around the country. Following the webinar, panelists participated in a live online chat. 

Earlier this year, the Alliance for Excellent Education documented the benefits of reducing the dropout rate for all students in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Building on this work, it is now able to estimate the economic benefits of reducing the dropout rate among students of color in these metro areas. On July 7, the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Campaign for High School Equity hosted a live webinar to release these new findings and to discuss the challenges of improving high school graduation rates among students of color and what doing so could mean for local communities, as well as the students themselves. Following the discussion, panelists answered questions from online participants.

On July 1, the Alliance held the second in its series of interactive webinars on what is happening in Washington, DC on education reform. During the webinar, Ann Whalen, special assistant to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Alliance Vice President of Federal Advocacy Phillip Lovell discussed the role that School Improvement Grants (SIG) can play in turning around the nation's lowest-performing schools.

Why does ESEA need to be reauthorized? How have these hearings moved ESEA reauthorization forward? Why is it imperative that Congress reauthorize ESEA in 2010? What questions do you think are being ignored in the ESEA debate? Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, answered these questions and more during the first in a series of interactive webinars by the Alliance for Excellent Education on what’s happening in Washington, DC on education reform. The webinar on June 15 included a short presentation by Gov. Wise, followed by a question and answer session during which Gov. Wise answered submitted questions.

One often-overlooked tool for improving students’ reading, as well as their learning from text, is writing. On April 14, 2010, the Alliance for Excellent Education released a report from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading, which identifies instructional practices shown to improve students’ reading abilities. Following a presentation of the report’s findings, experts explored the implications of the findings for the implementation of common core standards and federal policy.

This briefing featured educational leaders who are building the Linked Learning field in California. School leaders shared their on-the-ground experience, and policy experts and advocates talked about the alliance of stakeholders who have unified behind this approach. Click on the above link to read more about the event and to view materials from the event.