have become national board-certified teachers says an article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

is going to spend 250,000 promote a website called readysetgotocollege.com.

This high school cut two minutes out of traditional classes, tweaked morning anouncements, and cut time for lunch in order to save 20 minutes.  That time was used to create a seventh period to help students focus on academics and to get better test scores.

to show improvements on the Iowa skills test says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Her speech was nothing special. She praised the bill, said that testing is a good thing, scores are on the rise, achievement gaps are closing, etc…

Then it went into a question and answer session.

Around the 37 minute mark the best question was asked on the school system. The question was on voluntary national standards. Spelling said that she does not think that every community would want national standards.

She said she would like to see some reporting on how state standards would compare to national standards.

She thinks that we could have more schools could need improvment under national standards and that we need to find a balance with standards to bring the system foward without having very high bars to achieve.
IMO I do feel that national standards are the way to go.  Some schools could have a tougher time moving over to a national standard, but I do not like 50 states each having a different standard for graduating a high school student.  I will agree with her that more reporting should be done on how state standards will compare with some national standards for educating a student.
Florida has like some of the highest standards for a high school student and is a state that will need a close looking at over the next couple of years.  If the idea they have works all states are going to have to move over to what they have or suffer problems with creating a quality workforce.

in the state of New York is Out.  The Post-Standard says the Syracuse City School District is lagging behind other school districts in the area while the Buffalo News says they have only 2.8% of teachers that are not highly qualified.  The average for the state is 5.5%.