Florida's efforts to begin rating teacher preparation programs based on FCAT scores - which The Gradebook reported first last week - is turning some heads nationally.

The Flypaper blog gives partial credit to Obama's education secretary because of his support for such rating systems. Meanwhile, education researcher Greg Forster credits Florida for continuing to push the envelope on education reform. He adds:

The only problem I can see here is that this just compares education schools to one another. All education schools are part of the problem. Still, I can see a lot of value in knowing which ones are more a part of the problem or less – not least because if they start competing with one another on the basis of results, maybe someday one of them will actually produce a radical transformative revolutionary breakthrough and actually become a value-adding rather than value-subtracting part of the education system.