Two Points: 1) K-12 education's key teaching and learning functions are opening up to private sector involvement. The system is moving from a vertically integrated state-run monolith to more of a market. In this transition, each of the organizations holding a lab contract will have to decide how many sides of the buyer-seller-regulator-evaluator table it can safely occupy. None can hope to "do it all" and do any well - legally, ethically, or professionally, or as a matter of internal culture. As lab contractors decide whether they fit in the emerging market, expect a sorting out of roles and functions by each over the next three years, with units shed and acquired - maybe even traded, staff leaving to form new enterprises - possibly spurred by inevitable conflict of interest complaints. 2) The Department of Education is hoplessly tangled up in dealing with this market transition. It wants "quick and dirty" and "scientifically-based" from the same organizations, and arguably in the past most have not done either. It wants program evaluation but it also wants the dissemination of best practice - and that's a recipe for conflicts of interest. The right approach? One function, one contractor.   more »

By now it should be abunbdantly clear that saying you are "for NCLB" says as much about your position on federal k-12 policy, as saying you "support the tropps" does about your position on the war Iraq.   more »