Rumor mill: The mood among some insiders on Betsy DeVos is changing and there is some concern/hope (depending who you ask obviously) that her nomination could go down if Democrats really focus their efforts on it and pressure moderate Republicans. That’s a shift from a few weeks ago when even her staunchest critics were resigned to her confirmation.

Breaking News: Emmeline Zhao and I are moving the work we’ve been doing at RealClear Education to The 74. That will start early 2017, with news curation and original content. RCE will also continue to produce a newsletter and aggregation as well.

Bellwether: Marnie Kaplan on starting early and starting strong. Kirsten Schmitz with top teacher pension stories! Kaitlin Pennington starts a conversation on the purpose of teacher evaluation.

Yesterday I looked at our fraying norms around rights and decency.

Burning question: What are the top 10 blog posts and top 10 analyses Bellwether released in 2016? Here’s a handy list!

What I’m reading:

Here’s some good advice on charter policy from Alex Medler, Paul O’Neill & Suzie Kim. And here’ s a paper looking at new ideas on learning to employment training and education (pdf).

New class of Pahara – Aspen fellows.

Gopher Joe Nathan says fire the football coach at Minnesota. Public Prep’s (a Fordham fellow) Ian Rowe on family structure. Ken Wagner comes out for more choices via AF in Rhode Island. 

Here are 13 takes on how to address teach shortages.

Mike Rowe went to Meet the Press and talked education among other issues.  Mike Petrilli on what 2016 might mean for education down the road.

Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2017! Back in January if not sooner.