2006 -- It Was A Very Good Year

I'll add to this over the next couple of weeks (your ideas are welcome), but I can already tell that it's been a very good year for... George Miller and Ted Kennedy, who get to be chairmen again...the Gates Foundation, which got $33B more to play with courtesy of Warren Buffett (and their many beneficiaries)....Barack Obama, the political wonder boy (and Steve Robinson, his education LA)...LA Mayor Villagairosa and all the other big-city mayors who're running their own school systems...HBO's The Wire for portraying urban education and politics so realistically...Secretary Spellings, who's now down to the homestretch without losing her job...education blogs, which have proliferated (if not quite as fast as I thought they would) despite their lack of usefulness...education groups, which seem to be proliferating faster than rabbits...school bans (cellphones, purses, honor roll, cupcakes, etc.)...incentive pay for teachers, which is enjoying renewed attention and funding (even from lefty organizations like CAP....schools in year six of AYP, most of whom have had to very little differently to stay open.