These seats shouldn't be empty. Let's make sure all the children are here.

What’s happening in the Dropout Nation:

  1. The past couple of days has been filled with news about the various Race to the Top applications. You can check out the applications submitted by Indiana, Tennessee, Illinois, Alabama, Ohio, and California. Alexander Russo offers a more-comprehensive list; Andy Smarick offers some thoughts; and Neal McCluskey wishes it would all fade away (with the help of newly-elected U.S. Senator Scott Brown).
  2. The Wall Street Journal editorial board offers some advice to Arne Duncan on spending the Race to the Top money. Pick the best and most-innovative plans, they say, and forget a “Race to the Middle”.
  3. At EducationNews, Linda Schrock Taylor offers a few suggestions on how schools should teach reading. Start with by not bothering to teach it at all. She’s just kidding (I think).
  4. John Fensterwald looks at the latest NAEP data and sees bad news for the Golden State. Not exactly surprising.
  5. In the Detroit Free Press, the state-appointed finance czar (and school district overlord-in-waiting) Robert Bobb proposes that he and others should be “righting the great wrongs” of educational neglect that happens daily within the district. Well, it is a start.
  6. Charter Insights responds to AFT New York City honcho Michael Mulgrew’s latest paean against lifting New York State’s charter school cap.
  7. The SacBee offers a database on average teacher salaries in its region. It notes that the average teacher saw a 1.8 percent increase in pay.

More coming later this afternoon. Until then, enjoy this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast and commentary on the need to bring diversity of thought and coverage to education reporting. A video featuring D.C. Public Schools’ teacher quality czar will come in the next hour.