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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…)

Stanford professor and lightning-rod Linda Darling-Hammond this morning did not confirm a report that she is chairing an education policy group to advise Barack Obama’s transition team. Instead, speaking at an event in D.C., she told the audience that Obama is forming an advisory group on education — and named one member of the group: Roy Romer, the former Colorado governor and Los Angeles superintendent who led the Ed in 08 campaign over the last year.

I wasn’t at the event, which was titled “Education Policy In Transition,” but a reliable person who was there filled me in.

The transition team matters because it hints at a bigger question: What kind of education policy will Obama build? Placing Darling-Hammond in a top position could be a signal that her policy tastes will rule the day. Some people would love this, since she has been a stringent critic of things like high-stakes testing and No Child Left Behind and alternative teacher certification programs, like Teach For America. Others would hate it, like Teach For America.

The fact that she is not officially in charge of a policy team does not mean she never will be. But the real news is still the actual appointments made to the actual Obama Education Department, and those have yet to come.