Billionaire businessman Eli Broad, one of the country's most active philanthropists, founded the "Broad Superintendents Academy" in 2002 with an extraordinarily optimistic goal: Find leaders from both inside and outside education, train them, and have them occupying the superintendencies in a third of the 75 largest school districts--all in just…

The rhetoric of education today tends to divide the world in two: between those who favor "reform" and those who don't. Many who consider themselves reformers say they stand in opposition to the "status quo." Some of them speak of the need to challenge the "education establishment," or the education bureaucracy. Many also describe their policies…

A report calling for a top-to-bottom overhaul of the U.S. education and training system to help Americans compete in a global economy drew lavish praise and sharp criticism, foreshadowing what a heavy political lift its recommendations would likely be to carry out. Titled "Tough Choices or Tough Times," the report was unveiled at an all-day…