Innocents in Blogland

4. edspresso

Gardner: News, commentary and debate about education reform in a brew formulated to provoke debate.

5. Education Policy Blog

Gardner: Distinguishes itself from the pack by examining educational issues through the prism of social foundations. Stimulates reflective thinking.

Mathews: There are 13 listed contributors, including the above-mentioned Bernstein, and a New Jersey educator with a doctorate named Jim Horn who derided me as a KIPP cheerleader. Unlike DeRosa, however, he seemed to like what I wrote about Lisa Suben. You have to really, really love the intricate and jargon-laden grudges of the education obsessed to like everything in this blog, but I am in that group, and waded in happily. The writing is very lively, which always wins me over, and they have a lot of talent.

6. Eduwonk.com

Gardner: Penetrating analysis in a lively style on a wide range of issues.

Mathews: This is one of the few blogs I ever read before doing this column. Its contributor is Andy Rotherham, one of the most important education policy thinkers and politicos in the country, and my pick to be U.S. secretary of education someday. He is a former Clinton education adviser, a member of the Virginia state school board, and a co-founder of the Education Sector think tank. The blog is full of very lively short items and is always on top of the news. He gets extra points for skewering my high school rating system.

7. From the Trenches of Public Education

Gardner: Written from the point of view of teachers who deal with students, rather than from the vantage point of those pontificating from afar. Realistic and involving.

8. Intercepts

Mathews: This is the work of Mike Antonucci, the great independent watchdog of the teacher unions. He is a first-class writer and reporter, and looks regularly at this important topic that we mainstream press folk pretty much ignore.