Watch out, mainstream education reporters. The bloggers are catching up with you.

Earlier today, Senator Lamar Alexander might have been the first US Senator to reach out specifically to a group of education bloggers. The half-hour telephone press conference focused on Alexander’s America Competes Act (PDF) and NCLB. About 10 bloggers participated, and it mostly ran like a “normal” press conference -- people asking questions based on their interests and concerns as much as anything else, no big news made. [Alexander still sounds PO’d about the TIF funding having been blocked, and has that politicians’ habit of referring to long-ago events.]
Substantively, it’s pretty interesting that Alexander and others got the authorizing and appropriating committee heads to sign off and let the bill go straight to the floor, effectively bypassing NCLB and HEA reauthorization processes. That doesn’t happen that often. However, it’ll be a miracle if the proposal doesn’t attract a lot of amendments and gets through the House and into law, popular as “competitiveness” may be. And then of course it’s mostly about appropriations after that.