I try to stay up-to-date with current education issues — articles, policy, school reform, research.  At the same time, I’m not interested in suffering from “information overload,” so I’ve been trying to limit what I read.

Given both of those interests, I’ve narrowed down what I read regularly to a handful of e-newsletters (I’m assuming that at least some have RSS feeds, too, but I get them all via email) that come daily or weekly.

Some of the information in this post appeared in a short article I wrote for TechLearning last year.

Here are my choices for the best free e-newsletters on educational policy issues (the links are to subscription forms):

My number-one favorite is the ASCD SmartBrief. This daily newsletter is published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a national organization of educators.  This newsletter consistently provides thought-provoking articles from around the country.  ASCD also offers an exceptional breadth of other resources and materials.

Public Education Network Weekly News Blast is sent by…The Public Education Network, a national organization of progressive school reform groups.  It publishes a weekly newsletter of thoughtful articles that have been printed in various publications.

Teacher Magazine Update and EdWeek Update come from Editorial Projects in Education (EPE), which publishes Education Week and Teacher Magazine.  They also publish several free e-newsletters, including the weekly Teacher Magazine Update and EdWeek Update. The newsletters contain good education news summaries, links to lengthier articles, and highlights from educator’s blogs.

Ed Week Update: Daily News and Insight is a free daily email newsletter highlighting education news.  Ed Week recently began publishing it.  You can subscribe to it here.

Of Particular Interest is published by Middleweb, a network of educators primarily working in the middle grades.  However, this weekly newsletter is packed with articles and newsletters that are helpful to all K-12 teachers.

I’m adding a new resource to this list –  it’s a blog called This Week In Education by Alexander Russo.  He writes at Scholastic’s site for Administrators.  I’ve been subscribing for the past couple of months, and I’ve been impressed by the quality and quantity of his posts.

The Opening Bell is an excellent daily email of new articles about current educational issues. It’s from the National Education Association, and is free. You can only receive it, though, if you are an NEA member.

The Hechinger Report recently launched. The Report is a product of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, an independently funded unit of Teachers College, Columbia University.

Here is how it describes itself:

The Hechinger Report is a nonprofit news organization that is focused on producing in depth education journalism.

Fewer and fewer reporters at the nation’s largest newspapers and wire services are covering national education issues full time. As a result, critical issues do not get the attention they deserve.

The Report fills that gap. Working with in-house and freelance reporters, The Report covers education issues including investigative reporting and detailed analysis. From time to time we’ll also feature opinion from some of the leading thinkers in education.

You’ll find many of these stories in the pages of the nation’s biggest newspapers and websites. You’ll also be able to read all of them at this site.

It looks great…

If you found this post useful, you might want to explore my other “The Best…” lists.

You might also want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.