Two new reports from Jobs for the Future plus a cool interactive web feature are all worth your time.   One looks at six elements of dropout prevention (pdf).  Includes a lot of great stuff, but I would have liked to see more on state early-warning system that actually start really early.  States are still missing big opportunities to put all their data (and not just education data) to high-leverage use, and not just at the high school level.  Also, as new accountability rules for dropouts start to come online in some states, keep an eye out for backsliding.

Second report is about making alternative education a better alternative (pdf).   This is an enormous issue and a place where some amazing leaders like David Domenici, Cami Anderson, and others are breaking their picks today.   Interesting and important sector that largely flies below the radar.

New Education Northwest pub offers a buyers guide for turnaround services.

At TIME.com here’s my take on lobsters the transformative promise of common standards – a common denominator – and why most of the hype overstates the case. What didn’t I get into was the issue of innovation and how this can also be a powerful lever there.

Assuming quality and comparability are maintained, the new standards offer a common denominator in public education to help think about student performance and productivity. Sounds wonky, but it’s hard to overstate the importance of this to the national effort to improve schools across 50 states and thousands of communities. Right now anything goes in this $650 billion industry. A common benchmark for quality would help change that.

A common baseline will also empower teachers to meaningfully compare their work with peers from other states. It will force publishers and other education vendors to compete using actual results that are common across states rather than based on relationships, politics and claims that are often impossible to judge. Commonality will also make it harder for politicians and various stakeholders to hide behind their own data and claim their states as educational capitals when they’re not.

Update: Former MA state board of ed member Sandra Stotsky is not so impressed!

Two unrelated things on my mind today:

First, Waiting for Superman is obviously going to be an influential film, if for no other reason than the anticipation.   I’ve actually heard two people – not attached to the film – with visibility into the industry speculate about an Oscar nod.  The AFT is doing preventative media work.   And PR firms are amped-up on all sides.   Besides, anything by Elizabeth Shue’s husband is worth watching and his last education documentary was great, just ill-timed.  I saw an early uncut version and will write more after seeing the final.

But, The Lottery is a terrific and powerful film that hopefully won’t be completely swamped by the coming Superman wave.  If you haven’t seen it, well worth checking out.

Also, was looking at some forthcoming work today keyed to some findings coming out of state data systems.   I’m a big proponent of more use of data to inform policy and practice, and think the Data Quality Campaign is a quiet hero of the last decade in terms of high-impact organizations (I hope the new Digital Learning Council becomes analogous).  But, the data being put into so many of these systems is messy and often unreliable because of questionable coding and definition practices.  That’s below the radar but it’s a real issue because these data systems are only as good as their fuel and a few high-profile problems will spark a crisis of confidence and embolden critics.

Smart take on some social entrepreneurial opportunities in education today.  And via The Atlantic a good round-up of recent takes on education in D.C. and the election. I would dispute, however, that education is the center of the election, it’s an issue, yes, but there are a number of issues in play – of both style and substance.   The AFT funded ads, for instance, accuse Fenty of being a ‘part time’ mayor.

New York Mag takes a long and must-read look at Waiting for Superman and the larger issues surrounding it.

In the Wash Post Outlook my take on the Achilles heel of mayoral control and the unavoidable  trade-off between rapid reform and controversy – and what it means in D.C.

Jim Ryan’s new book, Five Miles Away, is now out .   It’s a good read and great analytic perspective.  But, rather than promoting it Jim is instead worried about correcting misperceptions about his fish handling skills!  He brought his own fish porn when he guestblogged here last month, but strongly objects to this characterization of his other fish as dead and sends this picture of a caught, and released, striper or ‘stripah’ to correct the record.

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Surprised there wasn’t more attention to yesterday’s assessment competition results? Me, too.  Our “insider” survey overwhelmingly predicted this outcome, both coalitions getting funded, but that was easy.   More interesting, policy insiders are pretty bearish on the likely rigor of the “smarter balanced” approach.  Most saw the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers as more likely to genuinely improve student learning.  More on all that later in the month when we release the full results.

And I’m not talking about flannel or the Fleet Foxes.  Per this post the other day, the new teachers’ contract was approved in Seattle.   And the teachers’ union there is griping about Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s style.  Wow. It’s the same thing they say about Michelle Rhee!  Yet Goodloe-Johnson, who is an Aspen Institute Fellows classmate of mine,  is basically the anti-Rhee in terms of her style.   So it kind of makes you again wonder if this isn’t more about resistance to change in general than a question of style?   As Woodrow Wilson said, “if you want to make enemies, try to change something.”

Politifact’s truth-o-meter gives generous score of ‘half true’ to AFT President Randi Weingarten’s claim about teachers unions and achievement on This Week.  Some background on the issue here. In Slate Jack Shafer provides the hardest-hitting case on behalf of the LA Times on value-added yet. Harder than the LAT itself!  And in the RTD Kris Amundson turns in her summer homework and challenges the commonwealth’s educational stance.

Wendy Kopp reflects on 20 years of TFA and the state of play on education reform in the WSJ. Anna Kimsey writes-up an important federal grant program to improve college going you may never have heard of but that is coming to a state near you.  And the value-add debate has turned into a bar fight here.

Rick Hess responds here to this post from the other day. Worth reading because he makes many good points that I agree with relative to the competition.   But he clouds a fundamental difference in our views on this.  Criticizing public officials for bad decisions or bad judgment either proactively or retroactively relative to their public duties and asking tough questions is completely fair game – and in fact a vital part of the process in our system.  Accusing, suggesting, insinuating, or otherwise hinting at bad faith and violations of the trust of a public office is fair game only to the extent it’s coupled with actual evidence rather than suppositions.  Otherwise, it crosses a line and I think that line was crossed by some of Race to the Top critics, including Rick, especially because of the extent to which key officials were recusing themselves to avoid even the perception of any conflict of interest.  An extent that I’ve argued (and Rick does) actually hurt the competition.  More generally, as with Reading First, the public interest is ill-served by this sort of stuff.

This matters because we may be about to see some back and forth with regard to the outcome of the assessment competition today.

Looks like a new labor agreement on the way in Seattle.  Details here and a planned vote Thursday.

If you read one thing on the value-add debate today, this forthcoming NYT Magazine piece is your best bet.

Update: So much for education being the most interesting thing in The Times Magazine this weekend!

New Digital Learning Council is getting some buzz.

Here’s my take on why I agreed to do it and what’s up on the issue.

Sherman Dorn asks a good question though!

Rick Hess didn’t like the This Week segment on education last Sunday.   I didn’t either, but kept it to <140.