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I can’t help but hope Obama agrees to an interview with Florida elementary school student Damon Weaver. He’s probably the only reporter who can offer court-time with Miami Heat basketball players.

Weaver, the Anderson Cooper of his school’s television station, first hit the national spotlight with his interview of then-candidate Joe Biden. What could make an educational experience more authentic than getting hundreds of thousands of YouTube views — and having your interviewee elected to national office?

[Via This Week in Education]

Just yesterday she was being cagey about her role in the Obama transition, but today Linda Darling-Hammond, the lightning-rod Stanford professor, was officially named head of Obama’s education policy working group.

The position is likely to be scrutinized by those who were looking for a sign of precisely where Obama will land in the Democratic Party’s raging debate over how to improve America’s public schools.

The thousands of people who have attached their names to an online petition supporting Darling-Hammond as a prospective Secretary of Education will likely embrace the news. They argue that she is “a key ingredient” to creating a “truly progressive public education system.”

But the news could also disappoint some in the education world who deeply oppose Darling-Hammond. (more…)

Where will Malia and Sasha Obama go to school after Inauguration Day?

At his first policy address as president-elect, Obama this afternoon said the family hasn’t yet decided where the girls will enroll. But he suggested that they will be looking farther afield than their neighborhood school. “Michelle will be scouting out some schools,” he said. “We’ll be making a decision about that in the future.”

In Chicago, the girls attend the progressive private school that’s affiliated with the University of Chicago. Many speculate that the Obamas will settle on an elite private school such as Sidwell Friends, which Chelsea Clinton attended. But D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee has been angling for months for the First Family to pick one of her schools. Blogger Matt Iglesias reports that Sara Mead of the New America Foundation says Capital City Public Charter School, with a diverse population and convenient location, would be a good choice.