With Valentine’s Day nearing, my family just took its annual love survey. Using a privately-run, publicly-funded love rating system, my family members and I rate our love for one another using a scale of 1 to 5. While the surveys are done individually and anonymously, the answers are compiled collectively and the results are shared publicly. Why, you may ask, do we go through this annual ritual and analysis of our family love? Because who better to turn to in matters of love than business-minded reformers. These data meisters profess that we must measure what we value. In our family, we value love, so – hence – the love meter matters.

Tax policy may not sound like the most interesting topic in the education reform world, but it is essential to ensuring our schools and teachers have the necessary resources to give every student a high-quality opportunity to learn. For a case in point, check out this recent op-ed in the Boston Globe from OTL ally Noah Berger, President of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.

On February 27th, the Opportunity to Learn Campaign will be hosting a webinar on racial justice with the Applied Research Center, an OTL ally. The webinar will provide advocates and organizers with valuable tools for framing and combating racial disparities in our nation's education system. Sign up here!

Score another legal victory in the fight for fair funding! A Texas state district court judge has ruled that the state's school funding system violates students' constitutionally-protected right to high quality education because it provides too little funding and distributes that funding unfairly. The case, decided by Judge John Dietz, hinged on TX's simultaneous implementation of higher achievement standards and budget cuts.

Recent events have revealed how market-driven education policies, deceivingly labeled as “reform,” are revealing their truly destructive effects on the streets and in the corridors of government. 

Need a blueprint for recruiting, developing and retaining high quality teachers in your state? Look no further than this report from CA State Superintendent Tom Torlakson's Task Force on Educator Excellence. Drawing on the expertise of educators and thought leaders like Linda Darling-Hammond, the report lays out precisely how states should invest in their teachers and their schools to ensure that every student has access to well-prepared and effective teachers.

The Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign and other education groups in the state held a press conference this week to voice their opposition to several bills introduced in the state legislature that would expand the state's charter school network and undermine the principles of equity and adequacy that have guided the state's progress in public education over the past decade.

Education organizers and advocates from 18 cities across the country made a "Journey for Justice" to the nation's capitol this week to make their case in person against school closures. They testified at a hearing before the US Department of Education and even met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan! They protested that the DOE's policies that favor closing underperforming schools rather than investing in them is doing irreparable harm to students by disrupting their communities and discriminating against schools serving primarily Black and Latino students.

New York City's Community School District 16 (CSD16), in the heart of Central Brooklyn, is the center of a bold new approach to grassroots, community-based reform. A new report from the Brooklyn Community Foundation, Brooklyn Movement Center and the Black Male Donor Collaborative lays out a blueprint for collaboration between school leadership, community stakeholders and philanthropic parters to support local schools and ensure access to educational opportunities for all students.