As governors and state legislators gear up for a new year of budget action and policymaking, the federal Race to the Top competition is helping drive a flurry of measures nationwide aimed, at least in part, at making states stronger candidates for a slice of the $4 billion in education grants. Those efforts emerge as a priority in the 2010…

This article reports on a Louisiana study which suggests that new teachers can be as effective as, or sometimes more effective than, their experienced colleagues. Experts say the study, the first of its kind to come out of a state that has implemented a multi-pronged approach to improving its teacher training, shows that it is possible for states…