President Obama and Secretary Duncan have made stronger teacher evaluation a key part of their education reform efforts. Under their signature plan, called 'Race to the Top,' states can win federal support for schools by improving teacher evaluations.

Alaska and Montana are not in the south but they definitely form part of the crimson tide of red states where Republicans are dominant.

I don't think there's any shortage of tough, sometimes vicious rhetoric about President Barack Obama coming from the right. Talk radio shows dominated by conservatives.

In the last 100 years only Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford lost their bids for reelection. President Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term.

Hikes in the debt ceiling - without any political demands from the opposition party - had been routine until President Obama took office.

Cable would not translate into the public radio universe.

My wife and I, Delice and I, are empty nesters.