Alyson Klein tells you what the budget deal means for education. And CER takes a look at charter school closures. Remember though, when an authorizer says they closed a school for financial reasons, it’s often the Al Capone approach – get ’em on their taxes. Those schools are often low-performing, too, but the fiscal case is the easiest one for authorizers to make because in this field you can argue about performance all day.
Politico Influence highlights one item from the most recent “Education Insider.” We asked respondents an open-ended question about who they saw as the most effective education lobbyists lobbying federal policy right now. Not surprisingly the NEA captured the top spot. They were followed by The Education Trust and the Council of Great City Schools. Penn Hill came in fourth. Couple of interesting takeaways from this ranking. First, it’s organizations not hired guns who are still seen to have the most influence. Second, while the Council of Great City Schools hitting the board might surprise people who don’t follow D.C. closely it’s actually a reflection of all the wheeling and dealing they’ve done and not so surprising. Finally, if you’re wondering why not much gets done on education besides spending bills consider the divergence in the agendas of those three groups.