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A charter advocate bemoans neighborhood opposition to a new location for the Rocky Mountain Deaf School in Lakewood.

A high school English teacher advocates a debate shift from the amount of instructional time to the quality of how that time is used.

Leaders of the Denver Metro Chamber and Colorado Succeeds say a controversial literacy bill would be good for kids and the economy.

Veteran high school teacher Mark Sass ponders random issues from “outsiders” intruding on school decisions to extended learning time.

More education opinion and commentary from across the country.

• Eva Moskowitz of Geoffrey Canada for NYC mayor? GothamSchools
• Family values don’t matter anymore? Thoughts on Education Policy blog
• The rise and fall of teacher ‘coolness.’ Philadelphia Notebook
• KIPP and the college completion conundrum. Rick Hess Straight Up
• Rage against the machine. Mike Antonucci’s Intercepts
• D.C., Detroit and school autonomy. The Quick and the Ed
• Why I am marching July 30. Diane Ravitch
• Disruptiness in K-12: Historical perspectives. Sherman Dorn

Here is our weekly roundup of interesting posts from education blogs around the country.

• Duncan’s imperial overreach. Rick Hess
• More on overreach. Hess again
• Public employee unions vs. Dem governors. Intercepts
• First year of “Teacherpocalypse” – less that 1% reduction in force. Intercepts
• On treating students, educators like rats in a maze. Ravitch, Bridging Differences
• A different take on the study Ravitch lauds. Joanne Jacobs
• Whatever happened to intrinsic motivation? Failing Schools
• The upside and downside of urban school reform. Larry Cuban
• Choice is not a magic integration bullet. Learning First Alliance

This graph illustrates the extreme grade inflation that prevails at many schools of education. The X axis represents GPA (4 is an A, etc).   Read more here.

Anyone who has read this blog over time knows that my librul heart bleeds for school integration, and particularly socio-economic mixing of student populations. Other bloggers and commenters here have pointed out that economically integrating schools is a sweet and quaint notion, entirely impractical in an environment where neighborhoods are segregated and local control rules the day.

And, some argue, since “no excuses” schools are proving that high-poverty student bodies can succeed under the right conditions, why batter one’s head against the brick wall of integration?

That all may be so. I believe in multiple strategies, though, so while letting a thousand “no excuses” flowers bloom, I also hope communities keep looking for creative ways to foster integration.

A new article in The American Prospect highlights one community’s push to socio-economically integrate its schools. Omaha might not seem the likeliest place to push an aggressive integration agenda, but the Learning Community program is unlike anything I’ve read about elsewhere in the country.

Marc Tucker and his National Center on Education and the Economy made a big splash back in 2006 with the publication of “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” a provocative manifesto calling for a radical overhaul of public education in the U.S. Tucker’s central argument was that we are falling far behind other nations because we are stuck in old paradigms about how education should look.

Now, in an update of sorts, Tucker has released “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants,” a 47-page paper that lays out two major and fundamental steps he believes the U.S. must begin taking immediately. Characteristically forceful and provocative, Tucker lays it out in stark terms: