legislation

Across the country, education reform is drawing big ideas and big bucks from some big names.

Indiana’s new schools superintendent, Glenda Ritz, is making some allies in the Statehouse: Republican legislators who pushed the education-reform laws that triggered a wave of voter discontent that carried the Democrat Ritz into her new job.

Gov. Rick Perry had called it “foolish and irresponsible” for Texas to apply for funds from the Obama administration’s signature education initiative. He feared Race to the Top funding would come with too many federal mandates on how to run classrooms in his state.

If turnout at a charter school conference held Saturday in Tacoma is any measure, there’s definitely some interest in the independently managed, publicly financed schools that were approved by voters in November.