An interesting debate is going on on the website of the magazine Education Week. The debate is about where foundation money would be best invested. Although the debate is specifically about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it seems like it could be reframed as:

If you had basically unlimited resources (or, more specifically, over a billion dollars to spend each year), what would you do to build the best possible educational system for our children?

The answers range from restructuring the system, to researching and developing model programs, to broader implementation of specific standards-based initiatives. It's a question people have been debating at least since I was in elementary school in the 70's and 80's, and usually starting from the assumption that schools need to be fixed.

One group taking a different approach is the Center on Education Policy, which describes itself as independent advocate for public schools. Last year they published a report titled Do You Know the Latest Good News in Education? compiling a number of statistics showing positive trends in public education.