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Andy Rotherham pens a smart column in this week's TIME Magazine ('States' Rights and States' Wrongs On School Reform'). In it, he deals with the oft-ignored issue of the capacity of state departments of education to implement education reforms or engage in strategic policymaking. Today's state departments of education are good at compliance, but with few exceptions, they are not good at strategy or leading systemic change. That's why competition is so fierce for talented individuals who are willing to work in state education agencies.... Rotherham loses me a bit with his proposed solution, glossing over the fiscal difficulties that would prevent a strengthening of state departments of education. So what to do? States need better bureaucrats. In some places, this means hiring new people. In others, it means making sure the right people aren't focusing on the wrong activities. Hey, I'm all for trying to work smarter. But the problem is that th...

TIME recently crowned 10 college presidents (nearly all men) the "best" in the nation. The article spurred the usual pushback against "top 10" lists and raised questions about the criteria used, but a notable aspect of the list hasn't drawn much attention: one of those presidents is Eduardo Padron , a community college president. This was a smart, strategic pick on TIME's part. 2009 is the year of the community college, and while Miami Dade is exceptional in many ways (including that it's officially Miami Dade College, since it awards BAs) inclusion of a president from that sector was wise. The signals abound: the status of the public 2-year college is rising, at least in the press. And what a relief. The role of the "snob factor" in resource allocations and overall treatment of community colleges has gone without mention for far too long. How many of us will openly praise the work of open-access institutions, while at home privately a...