Are there limits to federal involvement in K-12 education? What can the government really do well to improve schooling? Should it be involved at all? In this presidential election year, these and other educational hot topics are examined in Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit: Lessons From a Half-Century of Federal Efforts to Improve America’s Schools

Where Obama went wrong on education – and what Romney needs to say

Educators lack the data necessary to pinpoint concerns and successes in schools, but through six key steps, data-driven management in education could become a reality, and the data, if collected and analyzed correctly, could be used to foster improvements in education.

Today, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) director of education policy studies Rick Hess, along with Raegen Miller and Cindy Brown of the Center for American Progress, released recommendations for fixing key provisions of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--federal funding targeted at our nation’s neediest students.

With a new administration taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and George W. Bush's centerpiece No Child Left Behind Act up for reauthorization, Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at AEI, and Michael J. Petrilli, vice president of national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham...

Education leaders often act lazily, blaming union contracts and federal regulation rather than confronting the problems they have the capacity to solve.

Over the past fifty years, what have we learned about the nature of a smart, sensible federal role in K-12 schooling?