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If you follow the education policy debate at all, you know that critics are often called "defenders of the status quo" by people pushing market-based school reforms. Here is a piece about why it is actually the reforms that are preserving the status quo -- and what real reform would actually look like. It was written by Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. His writing can be accessed at http://www.arthurcamins.com/.

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Do you know anyone who was injured or killed in a drunken driving accident?    

What kinds of microbes did scientists identify in the kitchens they studied?    

Can you calculate the highest number of saves that the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera has attained in a single season?    

University of Virginia Professor Daniel Willingham is well known in ed circles for applying cognitive science to K-16 education. One topic to which he has written and returned is the notion of different "learning styles" and whether there is any real evidence for them. In 2009, for example, he wrote in a post on this blog:

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See what you know about the news of the day.    

This word has appeared in 101 New York Times articles in the past year.    

Anthony D. Weiner, the Democratic former congressman, was mobbed by the news media before and after an appearance in which he set himself apart from the other candidates running for City Hall.    

Some students are rebelling against a system they compare to “a factory that manufactures identical people,” and they have an ally in the education minister.    

Colorado’s highest court on Tuesday rejected a major challenge to how the state finances public schools, saying the system, while imperfect, conforms to the State Constitution.    

Two dozen Virginia elementary schools, including one in Alexandria, have applied for waivers from the state Board of Education to free schools from mandatory state testing requirements in science and social studies for third-graders so they have more time to develop reading skills.

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Fresh off his loss in April’s at-large D.C. Council race, Matthew Frumin is returning to his roots as an education activist.

Frumin is seeking to organize a new advocacy group devoted to unifying and amplifying the voice of parents in shaping D.C. schools policy. It’s a voice that’s too often been missing in debates about the future of public education in the city, he said.

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When incoming Fairfax County superintendent Karen Garza begins her term July 1, she will be paid $265,000 a year through June 30, 2017, according to a copy of her contract.

Garza will replace Jack D. Dale, whose nine-year tenure ends in about a month. Since early May, Dale has been at home recuperating from emergency cardiovascular surgery after suffering an aortic aneurysm at work.

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More than 30 state governments are organizing events to encourage enrollment in college savings and investment accounts.