Despite widespread fiscal distress, leaders of both parties in a majority of states supported high-quality pre-kindergarten investments in fiscal 2011, increasing total funding slightly, by just over 1%, to $5.4 billion, according to an analysis of voluntary state pre-k programs by Pre-K Now, a campaign of the Pew Center on the States.

A news release on the Pew Charitable Trusts website said 26 states and the District of Columbia protected their pre-k investments from budget cuts, according to the nonpartisan annual report, Votes Count: Legislative Action on Pre-K Fiscal Year 2011. State lawmakers of both parties continue to send a clear message that pre-kindergarten is a valued education reform strategy and a smart policy, even in a tough economy.  To read about the report, visit the Pew website, or read the full report.

As the House of Representatives prepares to vote on the 2011 budget, perhaps as early as Thursday, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) is asking legislators to include RIF’s grant in the bill. Without the grant, RIF officials say, the organization will no longer be able to serve the 4.4 million children currently receiving free books and other literacy materials. RIF is asking supporters to send a reminder to members of Congress asking for their support. More information is available at the RIF website. RIF is a nonprofit that aims to motivate young children to read by working with them, their parents, and community members to make reading a fun and beneficial part of everyday life. RIF's priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8.

Administrators and teachers in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation have collaborated to transform three schools with high poverty and low test scores into "equity schools." Historically, only one-third of the students in these schools pass the state's ISTEP exam, while 93% are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch. (The state averages are 62% passing on ISTEP and 42 percent enrolled in the meal programs.)

Superintendent Vince Bertram, approached teachers union president Keith Gambill with a question: "How can we work together to improve these chronically underperforming schools?"

They answered by designing a strategy that provides more autonomy to principals and faculty. The educators used their newfound flexibility to rewrite professional development curriculum for teachers, lengthen the school day, add days to the school calendar and redesign classroom strategies and activities while remaining compliant with state standards and requirements. Read more of this article by Bill Stanczykiewicz at indystar.com.

On her "Answer Sheet" blog for The Washington Post, Valerie Strauss hosts two guest writers who believe that teachers helped enable the accountability movement "that is choking teacher creativity, teacher autonomy, and teacher initiative. And our students are the ones who are paying the greatest price. In replacing normed-reference testing with criterion-reference testing, we replaced something bad with something worse," writes educational author Mark Pennington. "The standards-based movement with its frame of accountability is fully entrenched." His comments are followed by remarks by author Maya Wilson, who agrees that teachers "created standards... that were then used against them as the basis first for high-stakes standardized tests, and then as a springboard for national standards created by a corporation created by governors and business interests. Read the entire post online.

Former DC schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has joined the education transition team of Florida Governor-elect Rick Scott. Rhee's three-year tenure as leader of schools in the nation's capital ended in October, after Democratic Mayor Adrian M. Fenty lost his bid for reelection. Fenty named her to the post in 2007 after he took control of the city schools.

Rhee, who was a recent guest on satirist Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, became a polarizing figure in the District and in much of the education world, revered by some as an aggressive reformer and reviled by others as insensitive to teacher and community concerns. She closed many schools and fired or laid off hundreds of teachers. She also presided over rising test scores and reached an accord with the teachers union that launched a new performance pay system and reduced seniority rights.

The statement from Scott's office described Rhee as a nationally "recognized education reformer" who will "help him find innovative ways to create a new education system for a new economy." Read more of this article in The Washington Post online.