As groups representing local and state education players struggle to remain relevant in a policy conversation often dominated by foundations, think tanks, new advocacy groups, and political and business figures, a shift in leadership has been under way at major associations. Most of the changes have come as part of the natural churn; former…

As a new breed of national education advocacy organizations gains clout, they're entering into often-uneasy relationships with teachers' unions--and running into a debate about whether they can play a grassroots "ground game" comparable to that of labor. For many unions, the policy changes the newer groups typically support--staffing based on…

A new generation of education advocacy groups has emerged to play a formidable political role in states and communities across the country. Those groups are shaping policy through aggressive lobbying and campaign activity--an evolution in advocacy that is primed to continue in the 2012 elections and beyond. Though the record of their electoral…

Backers of the common-core academic standards have worked for years to secure the support of a diverse collection of elected officials, academic scholars, and school employees. Now they're ramping up efforts to court a different and potentially critically important audience: parents. A number of national organizations are churning out written and…

This article reports that long-established college associations and a nascent national organization are either building or planning five free, Web-based college-information platforms that may diminish the influence of the "U.S. News and Report's" annual rankings of "America's Best Colleges" and its influence among high school counselors, students,…

Officials of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards decided to post the report by veteran researcher William L. Sanders on the group's Web site after saying that they intended to stick with an "overview." The overview, which was largely critical of the study, appeared after the board was pressed to "publish something" by a…

When the nation's largest teachers' union convenes in Los Angeles for its annual meeting, the membership news will ring happier than in 2004. Then, the National Education Association's count of active-teacher members was down for the first time in 18 years, according to union officials. But over the past year, that number has grown by about…

The Department of Education has issued final rules underscoring that school districts must accommodate the Boy Scouts of America and certain other youth groups that ask to use schools for meetings and recruitment. Schools risk loss of their federal education aid if they do not comply with the requirement included in the No Child Left Behind Act.…

Hoping to lend renewed momentum to a movement whose growth has slowed in recent years, charter school leaders are stepping up efforts to enhance their eclectic sector's political and organizational clout. After a series of missteps, a national organization that aims to serve as a unified voice for the nation's roughly 3,000 charter schools is…

A member of the Bread Loaf Rural Teacher Network, a national organization of rural teachers interested in school reform, discusses the challenges that rural teachers face in creating criteria for evaluating student performance. Suggests that bringing teachers', students', and parents' voices into a community discussion about how to measure…

Two years after the United States began its military operations in Iraq, U.S. elementary and secondary schools are among the organizations that still must cope with the loss of employees to military service. This article reports on a number of concerns among districts and schools as the U.S. military operations continue for the foreseeable future.…