Afternoon Announcements: Pennsylvania Receives No Child Left Behind Act Waiver

Most Americans have never heard of the Common Core State Standards, the educational approach that is overhauling classroom instruction across most of the country and has triggered intensifying political and policy debate about the nation’s academic benchmarks, according to a national poll scheduled to be released Wednesday. The Washington Post

A Wyoming-based, nonprofit conservative advocacy group and a Casper lawmaker are sponsoring an education roundtable in Casper Tuesday to clear up what they say is widespread confusion regarding the new Common Core State Standards. Billings Gazette

At the Rhode Island Foundation Monday night, state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist updated members of the Race to the Top steering committee on the progress of the grant. Rhode Island has spent $44.4 million, of which $21 million was awarded to local districts, according to Gist’s spokesman, Elliot Krieger. The grant allowed the state Education Department to hire 22 staff to develop and roll out the new programs. Providence Journal

Three-quarters of Washington’s “insiders” say US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s decision to grant a special waiver to eight California districts is bad policy, according to the latest Whiteboard Adviser’s survey of mostly inside-the-Beltway folks. Politics K-12

Pennsylvania today became the 43nd waiver applicant to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education, just in time for the start of the 2013-14 school year. That means 41 states, the District of Columbia, and eight California districts now have waivers under the NCLB law. Politics K-12