After years of debating the idea of national content standards, representatives from 37 states were set to convene in Chicago last week in what organizers hoped would be a first, concrete step toward common guidelines in mathematics and English language arts. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers--the…

By explicitly naming education as one of three top priority areas in his first joint congressional address and in his first federal budget proposal, President Barack Obama is putting considerable political weight--and even more money--behind the agenda he laid out during his campaign. Certain themes he struck in the Feb. 24…