Secretary Duncan is appearing before the House education committee on March 3.
I'm very interested to see how this goes. There's a better than average chance that it will be standard fare: the secretary could simply recite accomplishments, discuss the basics of his 2011 budget request, and reiterate already announced plans; then Members might read tame statements into the record offering praise and raising pet issues.
Or it might be more. Maybe there will be a new announcement or two from the administration (perhaps on ESEA) or some interesting, unexpected push-back from the committee.
My guess is that if there's real news coming out of the hearing, it will be the secretary's announcement of Race to the Top finalists and his summary of the strengths and weakness of the applications.
--Andy Smarick