In a move that could reshape academic assessment in nearly every corner of the country, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded $330 million in grants to collaboratives of states to design better ways of measuring student learning. The grants, awarded Sept. 2, went to two groups of states that sought the money under the federal Race to the…

A Washington research group is raising questions about the wisdom of the U.S. Department of Education's favored strategies for turning around the lowest-performing schools with stimulus funding, saying that its research shows that similar federal approaches to school restructuring have not been effective. The questions raised by the new study were…