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I am creating a training day for the ABCTE staff and have spent a lot of time reading in preparation. In trying to stretch the mindset of our amazing team, we will be talking about Tribes by Seth Godin, and The Long Tail and Free by Chris Anderson. I will throw in a smattering of Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen just to tie it all together.

We’re seeing a lot of news and chatter coming out of Washington State that all points to the fact that they could really use ABCTE.

I was so impressed with the Politics of Blocking outlined in Chubb and Moe's book - Liberating Learning that Heartland asked me to do a book review. You can find it here.

Jay Matthews has a quick ABCTE plug in the Washington Post this morning. If you have not been following it, he told the story a few weeks back about a gifted teacher who was frustrated by the bureaucracy involved with becoming a licensed teacher. To be blunt, if Jay had not inquired, this man would still be battling the powers that be.

We continue to stay in the news in Indiana as SUPERintendent Tony Bennett pushes for major reforms in education. This is great to see as you have a teacher speaking out in favor of these reforms and the SUPERman himself pushing hard.

Let’s break it down – shall we?
1. Teachers have the greatest impact on students

Interesting exchange during the New America Alliance conference on education opportunities here in Santa Barbara. There was a panel with Steve Barr from Green Dot, Kim Smith from NewSchools Venture Fund that was moderated by Dr. Angela Valenzuela. It was supposed to be a panel on business response to education issues but Dr. Valenzuela wanted to use the opportunity to rail against testing.

She picked the wrong panel.

Fridays need to be simplified – especially in the blogosphere. So I just wanted to provide some quick thoughts on The Cartel – the documentary that looks at education in New Jersey but could apply to any state. To me the most powerful point in the movie is the charter school lottery. The artificial caps on the number of charter schools in this country means that in many places you have to put your name into a lottery to see if you get to go to a great school.

One of the big issues with the ARRA funds and the Race to the Top challenge is the supposed short term nature of this incredible boost in funding. This is a one time opportunity with billions of dollars to be used to give our education system a push in the right direction.

The concern from all sides is what will happen when the funds are gone.

On the right, they are deathly afraid that the spending will continue and the results will be mediocre at best. On the left, they are deathly afraid that the opportunity will be squandered with little or nothing to show for it.

It was pretty nice of iNACOL (the online learning group) to give out copies of Liberating Learning by Terry Moe and John Chubb at the ALEC Conference last week. It is a pretty easy read that I finished on the plane to Mississippi yesterday.

I wish I had read it five years ago.

Moe and Chubb give you a primer on the political strategy of the teacher’s union. They call it the politics of blocking. The key points they make are dead on:

1. Teacher’s unions are very powerful at the state and local level

I had the pleasure of attending the Alliance for Choice in Education event in Denver this week. Many out there in the education world hate choice and think it is a bunch of rich white guys trying to foist their economic principles on the education system.

But in Denver it is about saving kids. ACE knows that they cannot save every child stuck in poverty, but they feel strongly that saving one at a time from a destiny of failure is a worthwhile cause.