Federal

I had the opportunity to spend time with NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia. We spent almost an hour talking about everything from her roots in education to the upcoming election cycle and the opportunity education has to inform future directives.

By Michael Stratford – WASHINGTON — DC T he U.S. Department of Education plans to name the colleges whose access to federal money it has restricted because of concerns about the risk they pose to students and taxpayers. And most of the institutions placed on those financial sanctions in recent years have been for-profit colleges, newly disclosed federal records show.Officials will release the list of colleges currently subject to extra scrutiny known as heightened cash monitoring at some point next week, according to Dorie Nolt, the department’s press secretary. Read the rest of the story

by Maureen SullivanWith a speech at Liberty University in Virginia on Monday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) became the first candidate to declare for the 2016 presidential election. Just about every chance he gets he says he believes school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Here’s a look at some of his other views on education issues:Common Core State Standards:“We need to repeal Common Core,” he told the Heritage Foundation’s Conservative Policy Summit in January. “We need to get the federal government out of the business of dictating educational standards. Education is far too important for it to be governed by unelected bureaucrats in Washington. It should be at the state level or even better at the local level.”Read the rest of the story at Forutune

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is highlighting private-sector efforts to encourage more students from underrepresented groups to pursue education in science, technology, engineering and math.At the White House Science Fair on Monday, Obama will announce more than $240 million in pledges to boost the study of those fields, known as STEM. This year’s fair is focused on diversity.Obama will say the new commitments have brought total financial and material support for these programs to $1 billion. Read the rest of the story at U-T San Diego

Jim Kohlmoos, Principal with Edge Consulting, discusses how he works with organizations to navigate education priorities and agendas.

S teven Hodas, the former Executive Director for NY city’s iZone or Office of Innovation and current Practitioner in Residence at CRPE.org shares his views on innovation in the face of K-12 bureaucracy.