A few bits to peruse on this late summer morning:
• The Maryland board of education gets on its biggest district’s case for the controversial curriculum contract it signed with Pearson (more about that contract here).
• Whiteboard Advisors, a consulting outfit here in Washington, takes an “insiders’ survey” about perceptions of the two state consortia that recently won Race to the Top assessment grants. It finds some intriguing things, and offers a little tease here. Full results are due out tomorrow.
• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation highlights its work on the common-core standards in its annual report (see Page 5). Released earlier this week, the overview of its 2009 work says that in the next eight years, the foundation plans to invest $250 million in “next-generation instructional tools” that reflect the common standards. (The foundation already handed out about $19 million in this area, and has spent millions more to support various players who have advanced the initiative.)
The Gates Foundation also released results of a survey of its own grantees, and found some interesting wells of discontent. (Disclosure: Editorial Projects in Education, which publishes Education Week, is also a Gates grantee.)