TIME.com -- As a new school year begins, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan plans to use waivers to rewrite parts of the nation’s signature federal education law, whose reauthorization has been stalled in Congress.

TIME.com -- As a practicing physician and the father of triplets, Dr. Drew isn’t fielding abstract questions — his own kids are starting university this fall.

This 2011 report surveys recently passed teacher evaluation policies in five states and rates each on the law's strengths and weaknesses in teacher evaluation design requirements, transparency and public reporting of evaluation data, principal autonomy over teacher hiring and placement, and the extent to which the law links teacher evaluation results to key personnel decisions, including tenure, reductions in force, dismissal of underperforming teachers, and retention.

In 2012, the U.S. Department of Education unveiled its Investing in Innovation (i3) initiative to fuel greater innovation in public education – and to sustain it. In this paper, education entrepreneur Kim Smith and innovation writer Julie Petersen assess the initial effect of the program’s first round on specific elements of the innovation ecosystem in education, including innovators, philanthropic donors, and the federal education agency itself. While the program increased public and philanthropic attention to the need for innovation and to measuring and scaling up what works, factors like its narrow eligibility requirements, limited definition of acceptable evidence, and over-simplified process have kept the program from achieving its full potential.