NPR this morning did a segment on just how bipartisan John McCain and Barack Obama really are. (Hat tip to Liam, over at Flypaper.) As an example of just how willing Obama is to break ranks with his party, NPR points to an interview the Illinois Democrat gave to Fox News Sunday, in which he pointed out that he embraces the not-so-Democratic ideas of charter schools and some sort of merit pay for te...

As the National Education Association's annual convention gets started, the nation's largest teachers' union unveiled its plan to fix schools by 2020. The crux: get rid of the No Child Left Behind Act, diminish the federal role in education while still giving states lots of money. More specifically, the NEA wants the federal government to focus grant money on recruiting, training, and supporting te...

Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois wants faith-based organizations to get more involved in federal programs, including after-school programs, according to this New York Times story. The story goes on to describe how Obama (and GOP rival Sen. John McCain of Arizona) are courting religious voters. But it doesn't mention one key education demographic: religious homeschoolers,...

There's been a lot of dust-up over the fact that sometimes, Barack Obama doesn't wear a flag pin on his lapel. So in hopes of assuring people that he really, really is patriotic, he delivered this speech yesterday about patriotism, in which he emphasized the role of schools in turning kids into good Americans: The loss of quality civic education from so many of our classrooms has left too many youn...

Because respondents in a new Associated Press poll list it as the most significant problem facing their child's school. Forty-seven percent think getting and keeping good teachers is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem. Teachers are a bigger issue than overcrowding, lack of student discipline (which came in second), and school violence. Teacher quality also outranks the condition of scho...