Campaigns. Democrats attack Gov. Rick Scott on education funding. PolitiFact rates them half true.  Pinellas school board candidates talk charter schools, Common Core and other hot topics. Gradebook.

Transformation. The information revolution that's playing out in other industries will bring dramatic changes to education in the coming years, former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Growth. Lee County schools are growing, but the district is short on construction funding. Fort Myers News-Press.

Class size. The Duval school district faces a penalty under the state's rules limiting class size. Florida Times-Union.

Closures. The Sarasota school district shuts down a school for emotionally troubled students, saying it would prefer to place them in mainstream classrooms. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Teachers. The Sun-Sentinel writes up the federal government's plan to improve teacher equity. Pasco schools aim to limit teachers transferring during the school year. Gradebook.

Superintendents. Osceola's superintendent gets a new contract. Sentinel School Zone.

Administration. An ousted Manatee County administrator could receive back pay and other compensation after complaints against him are dismissed. Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Unions. Pasco county's school superintendent and union president are at odds over his management style. Gradebook.

As the RNC wound down today, it took a sharp turn back towards partisanship in education reform, with former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings offering the week’s hardest knock on President Obama’s education record.

Former President George W. Bush reached across the aisle to work with the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and other Democrats to pass No Child Left Behind, said Spellings, who Bush appointed. And it’s no surprise, she said, that former Florida Gov. Jeb was the most successful education governor in recent times.

“That’s because of leadership,” Spellings said at an education panel sponsored by Bloomberg Link and the 2012 Tampa Bay Host Committee for the RNC. “We have not seen that from President Obama on this topic.”

“If half the minority kids in this country were not getting out of high school on time, we ought to be marching in the streets,” she continued. “If half the school lunches served next week in these schools were tainted, we would be marching in the street. Michelle Obama would write a cookbook.”

Spellings criticized some aspects of Race to the Top, Obama’s signature education program, and panned his administration’s decision to grant No Child flexibility to a number of states.

“The Obama administration has given waivers out like candy,” she said. And the result has been a return to lower standards for poor kids.

Jeb Bush, who was part of the panel discussion, did not criticize Obama. But he also did not praise him as he has in the past, including earlier this week. He directed his fire at teachers unions. (more…)

Tea Party groups succeeded in pushing the Republican Party platform to the right this year, but they failed to restore a former plank they favor: Eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.

The effort was led by FreedomWorks, the advocacy group chaired by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey and a leading force in the Tea Party movement. Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks, told redefinED at the RNC that while the group fell short on the platform language, it succeeded in fostering a debate about decentralized decision-making in education – and the effectiveness of federal involvement. (FreedomWorks, by the way, is a strong supporter of expanded school choice).

“I don’t think that there’s any evidence that education has improved in this country because of the Department of Education,” Steinhauser said.

You can hear Steinhauser’s comments in full by clicking on the recorded interview below, but here are some highlights:

On criticism from former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings (who favors a federal role in education): Those who support a federal role “are technocrats who think you can plan education policy from the top down, from Washington D.C., better than you can at the local level. And I just don’t think that that’s the case. … Allowing for local communities to decide what’s best for their children, what’s best for their communities, is the way to go. So when you give a federal department like the Department of Education more power as opposed to less power, they will use it. And I just am not convinced that bureaucrats in Washington D.C. know how best to educate our children in local communities."

On ironically being a bit in sync with the teachers unions (which are critical of federal initiatives like Obama’s Race to the Top): “Given all the fights we’ve had with the teachers unions over the years – they’re kind of our arch enemies when it comes to policies we’re pushing – one particular position like this, I don’t think matters a whole lot. I think you can probably find some common position between just about anybody. But no, when it comes to the big battles, the big debates, I think we’re on the right side here and on the opposite side of the teachers union with about 99 percent of the issues.”

At the RNC in Tampa this week, a small but bright constellation is scheduled to line up on education reform. Democrat Michelle Rhee, who famously tangled with teachers unions as schools chief in Washington D.C., will share a spotlight with Jeb Bush, who has praised President Obama’s ed initiatives, and Condoleezza Rice, who co-authored a Council on Foreign Relations ed report with Democrat Joel Klein. The panel will be moderated by Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor who just got into a Twitter spat with Randi Weingarten. All will come together after a private screening of “Won’t Back Down,” a new movie that shows even Hollywood has embraced parental empowerment in education.

This will be a remarkable little event – a hopeful symbol of a centrist political coalition, in the midst of a red partisan sea, that is poised to take advantage of historic opportunities to re-shape the nation’s schools.

Poised, that is, unless it get chewed up by the fringes.

The Republican Party may be tilting even more right, but on education the centrists still hold sway. Jeb Bush, who supports a federal role for education, and backs national academic standards, remains one of the party’s leading lights on ed reform. His prime-time speech will likely generate more ink about education than anything else that happens at the RNC.

But obviously, there is tension. Rising Tea Party currents want to erode recent federal activism in ed reform – a position that so ironically leaves them pitching tents next to teachers unions. Their passion is well-meaning; their arguments worth considering. But their timing is especially bad: Reform-minded Republicans and Democrats are getting close when it comes to a common vision for public education – a vision that includes a healthy dose of school choice and bottom-up transformation. This rare alignment is mostly intact because the GOP led on education, and enough Democrats bucked their own fringes to shift the GOP’s way.

In a recent op-ed for redefinED, Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education under George W. Bush, didn’t call out Tea Party groups by name, but she didn’t mince words when it comes to the potential consequences of their aims: “This ‘unholy alliance’ between the unions and those who want no role for the federal government in education is propping up the status quo on the backs of our most vulnerable children,” she wrote. “It’s shameful beyond words.”

Mitt Romney and the ed centrists won a quiet victory in Tampa last week. They beat back attempts to restore an old plank in the GOP platform – eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. Tea Party linked groups got almost everything else they wanted. But according to Politico, instead of using the word “eliminate” in the draft language regarding the U.S. DOE, a subcommittee voted to replace it with a call to “support the examination and functions of.”

That’s a breather, but a temporary one. It should give added urgency to those in both parties who want to see constructive change and know more will get done, quicker, if centrists work together and find ways to grow their ranks. It’s important to remember that today, at the start of the storm-delayed RNC, before the spin makes every crack between Romney and Obama on education look like a canyon.

Just a reminder: redefinED will be at the Republican National Convention in Tampa next week. Our offices are six blocks from away; how could we not be?

We’re planning to cover anything and everything at the RNC, within our reach, that has to do with school choice and ed reform. The official schedule alone suggests we’ll be busy: Jeb Bush, Margaret Spellings, Michelle Rhee ... you get the picture.

So, look for a lot of blogging, probably even more tweeting. If you don’t already, check out our facebook page. On Twitter, follow us @redefinEDonline.

Oh how the blog gods have smiled down upon redefinED.

The 2012 Republican National Convention will be held in downtown Tampa this month – six blocks from the building that houses Step Up for Students and our humble blog. I received press credentials to cover the convention. And next week, as a lead-up to the event, we’ll be posting essays from some of the leading voices in school choice and education reform.

Here’s the line up: former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings; Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute; Robert C. Enlow, president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice; Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform; Michael B. Horn, executive director for education at the Innosight Institute; and Eva S. Moskowitz, founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.

With the RNC and November elections as a backdrop, we asked our contributors what – if anything – the federal government can do to promote school choice. It goes without saying that the responses are thoughtful, insightful and informative. They’re also diverse. They’ll give you plenty to think about – and even a few things to laugh at.

First up Monday: Secretary Spellings.