In this article, Richard Lee Colvin, provides an uplifting history of the current vice president and next President of the National Education Association (NEA), Lily Eskelsen García, the first Hispanic head of the nation's largest union. Colvin describes Garcia as a powerful labor and political leader. Colvin describes NEA's beginning in 1857 by…

This article presents a debate over the Common Core State Standards Initiative as it has rocketed to the forefront of education policy discussions around the country. The author contends that there is value in having clear cross state standards that will clarify the new online and blended learning that the growing use of technology has provided…

The campaign for universal preschool education in the United States has gained great momentum. Precisely as strategists intended, many Americans have come to believe that pre-kindergarten is a good and necessary thing for government to provide, even that not providing it will cruelly deprive the youngest residents of their birthrights, blight…

Given the strong union support for the Obama presidency, there was great speculation within education circles throughout the fall as to whether the new president would turn out to be a reformer--willing to challenge existing practices and the teachers unions in order to achieve dramatic changes in schools--or play it politically safe by backing…

While there are no reliable counts of single-gender schools in the first half of the 20th century, best estimates are that most were schools for white boys. Many of the girls' schools that did exist early on served as "finishing" schools rather than preparation for college. In the 1960s and 1970s, the civil rights and feminist movements…

Educational software makers are often rebuffed by educational authorities, whose endorsements could lead to governmental stamps of approval, and thus explosive sales. But they usually get warmer receptions in the offices of the nation's school superintendents, who are, after all, their primary customers. The system was not supposed to work this…