Have you heard? School choice is a bit of a hot topic in Washington lately.

But whether — much less how — the federal government should help expand parental choice can be a thorny question.

Indiana Rep. Luke Messer is one of the biggest school choice advocates in Congress. He's also a federalist who wants to keep education policy decisions at the state level. But he's said repeatedly that there are still things federal lawmakers can do to expand educational options.

During an event hosted by the Hoover Institution, he said a school choice "cavalry" has arrived in the nation's capital, led by Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos.

"Frankly, this is a sea change in this movement," he said, echoing comments made Tuesday by Sen. Lamar Alexander, who chairs the panel vetting DeVos. "Her ideas are in the mainstream."

When the federal government and private school choice intersect, pundits often get confused. Two commonly distorted issues, federal mandates and  school accountability, were batted around at the Hoover event.

Avoiding state mandates

Andy Smarick, a Maryland state Board of Education member and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said all the talk of federal school choice policy brings flashbacks of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, teacher evaluations — areas where states enacted reforms, then the federal government got involved, and wound up jeopardizing the policies by raising the political stakes. (more…)

For decades dominated by traditional public schools, the landscape of public education is changing fast. New species are thriving – charters, vouchers, virtual, you name it - and who knows what nimble subspecies and hybrids are on their way.

Can teacher unions, so shaped by an earlier era, adapt?

We posed that question to a handful of ed reformers who have thought deeply about these issues. Next week, we’ll bring you their answers. You’ll hear from Terry Moe, the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform; Gary Beckner, executive director and founder of the Association of American Educators; and Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students and former president of two teacher unions.

We asked several current teacher union officials to contribute to our series, but they declined. One told us the current climate within the union made it politically unsafe to do so. We remain eager to publish the views of teacher union officials, and don't hesitate to reach out directly to me at rmatus@sufs.org or (727) 580-1577.