Since NCLB was first implemented, there has not been a moment of reflection for policy makers to determine if these tests are in any way improving teaching and learning. This sorely needed reflection can start by visiting a classroom.

Today In School Closures... Detroit is slated to close even more schools, reports CBS. Enrollment in the Motor City has dwindled from 150,000 to a projected 40,000. "A deficit elimination plan obtained by The Detroit News says the district will close 28 schools [by 2016]," CBS reports. "The closures are expected to save DPS about $13.4 million in operating expenses, but hundreds of district employees will be out of a job." The Free Press has a letter from emergency manager Roy Roberts to the district's employees: DPS has "accelerated the time line for its return to complete fiscal stability," he wrote. But Roberts hasn't said which schools will be shuttered.

It is now time to re-evaluate our education policy, starting with the voice, tools, and support that we provide for our school leaders, the principals and administrators responsible for overseeing the scholastic performance and physical operations of our schools.

It's back to school for Congress. Today, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, held his first organizational meeting with the 113th Congress's iteration of his committee. In his opening remarks, Kline said reauthorizing No Child Left Behind will remain a "top priority." NCLB, the sweeping law that governs public K-12 education, expired in 2007.

In the name of progress and prosperity for our country, we must open ourselves up to a host of educational strategies, options and experiments to advance student learning. We must hold firm that with an education and a dream, every American can make his or her own success.

And You Thought Creationism Was Bad? According to a new book, No Child Left Behind could have been a heck of a lot, well, weirder. Reports Vulture: Tom Cruise "tried to convince President George W. Bush's Secretary of Education Rod Paige to include Hubbard's 'study tech' educational methods into No Child Left Behind." Ya hear that? NCLB could have included things like scientology. It makes Rick Santorum's creationism amendment look tame by comparison! (h/t GothamSchools)

Since President George W. Bush signed the law on Jan. 8, 2002, the ways in which American students are educated has changed considerably, often for the good. But there is room for improvement.

Creativity is said to be a driver of the U.S. economic recovery. But how can that be if we're stuck in chairs uninspired?

Yesterday, No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era big government education law, turned 11. We had a lot more to say about this on the tenth anniversary, but the 11th is worth noting for one simple reason: the law doesn't really exist anymore! At least, not as we knew it.

The idea of "learning by doing" stretches back to education legends Maria Montessori and John Dewey, both of whom felt teachers should act more as guides to students' independent discoveries than as founts of information.

Why have politicians and others decided to ignore the research and use defective systems to make major decisions about retaining teachers or determining their pay? Why are we not "minding the gap"?

This piece comes to us courtesy of New Haven Independent. Two-thirds of black students, but only half of Hispanics, graduated from Wilbur Cross Hig...

"Reformers" must choose between their value-added models and top down micromanaging of "innovations" and their desire to teach for college and career readiness.

FLORENCE, S.C. -- State education superintendent Dr. Mick Zais could be facing a potentially angry mob of teachers Thursday night at a Florence meetin...

As the lame duck Congress wraps up and energy builds towards a new Congress and a second Obama term in office, I can't help but wishing that reauthorizing No Child Left Behind was something that was on everyone's first order of business for January and February.

Matt Chingos has an idea that will likely roil the scores of parents and teachers who think the U.S. tests its students too much: we might actually sp...