Note to Sara Palin: Michelle Obama is free to stop by my house any evening and tell my kids they can’t have dessert. After seven-plus years of this war, I’m battle fatigued. Michelle would probably …

A couple of salient points in the hoo-ha coming today from those who lost the health care fight:
Not all Americans hate the new law. More people think it will help than think it will hurt. …

It’s not quite the east coast and west coast rappers sitting down over tea and crumpets, but when three manufacturing rivals get together for a joint project, it’s big news.
Except in the case of the …

Two contradictory tidbits from a CNet story this morning about an Federal Communications Commission report on expanding broadband Internet access to more parts of the country:

A third of adults who don’t have broadband at home …

Every time a kid in California misses more than three days of school, the district spits out a form letter notifying parents that the student’s a truant.
Because the state requires districts to send that letter …

You have to wonder if the fumes from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous cigar patio are starting to affect his thinking.
Why else would someone who for years has battled California’s wacky budget process suggest making the …

Recent studies show that texting behind the wheel is more dangerous than driving drunk. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia already ban texting while driving. Federal employees can’t do it, and there already was …

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s plan to start developing a national test before anyone’s even come up with national standards is far worse that putting the cart before the horse.
It’s more like hitching up Secretariat …

American Indian Public charter school in Oakland has a history of students with high poverty rates who achieve some of the highest standardized test scores in the California.
It also has a history that includes shaving  …

Give Intel Chairman Craig Barrett credit for two things: He’s no Johnny Come Lately to the issue of education reform, and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is sometimes.
Make that three things: …

Here’s a sucker bet:
Within the next year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will go to Boston to trumpet its charter schools as one of his “islands of excellence” where children can blossom and principals can take …

Did Education Secretary Arne Duncan just accomplish in mere weeks what the past two presidents couldn’t pull off in 16 years?
Look deep into a Tuesday New York Times article, far below all the “gee, isn’t …

Trying to define what is and isn’t economic stimulus is beginning to look like that classic judicial struggle to nail down pornography: “I know it when I see it.”
The problem is, too many are seeing …

Gary Johnson and Rebecca Witt are making it, but barely, on his $8-an-hour job while she uses grants to pay for college in between raising three children.
But because they aren’t married, the state of Michigan …

I don’t know which scared me more the day I swerved my Ford Escort off the freeway just in time to see the engine ignite: The flames shooting from the hood or my stepdad’s predictable …

I was one of those parents today. The kind the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gets verklempt about every autumn as it considers, yet again, banning kiddie cold medicine. The kind of heartless momma who …

I took a gamble and won, which is odd for me. I’m usually so unlucky I haven’t come out ahead on so much as a lottery ticket in close to a decade.
We decided in November …

Happy Birthday, No Child Left Behind.
You were born seven years ago today as the federal government’s first major foray into education reform. Through testing and bludgeoning, you were supposed to be the solution to the …

Dead technophobes can rest in peace: The Recording Industry Association of America says it’s no longer going to head straight to court in instances such the case where it accused a West Virginia granny who’d …

If the chief knock against Arne Duncan is that the education secretary-designate is not an educator, there’s little cause for worry.
The last time the party changed in the White House the education secretary’s resume included …

It’s been a bad week to be a worker — if you still even have a job.

In Chicago, workers staged a sit-in after their plant closed and they were told they wouldn’t receive even as …

I’ve done a fantastic job showing Big Guy how to tie his shoes. He knows everything he needs to know to tie his shoes. But he still can’t tie his stinking shoes.
And there are accusations …

A flier in Big Guy’s backpack when he came home from school this afternoon asks, “Does your child have health insurance?”
It includes basic information about California’s Health Families program, which insures children whose parents …

“I used to complain about having no shoes until I met a man with no feet” was my parents’ favorite “quit your whining” cliche when I was a kid.
I learned the truth of it last …

I love Gaston Caperton. I really do.
When he said he was going to be an education governor, he meant it. He’s had a life-long commitment to improving schools, not only in the rich districts — …

I am comfortably middle class. Though that assumes that there’s still comfort in a middle class where the day-care bill is higher than a pre-housing boom mortgage and climbing at twice the rate of inflation.
Not …

I’m grumpy in the morning to begin with, plus you can’t be involved in political reporting for as long as I was without developing at least a veneer of cynicism.
Which is why I’ve snarled at …

In theory, merit pay for teachers has a lot going for it.
Reward the best. Truly inspiring classroom leaders such as Big Guy’s kindergarten teacher, who alternately inspires him with caterpillars and saves his life. Or …