Marc Tucker’s upcoming speaking engagement at the Iowa Teacher and Principal Leadership Symposium prompted the Governor’s Special Assistant for Education, Linda Fandel, to post about Standing on the Shoulders of Giants on the Iowa.gov web site.  Peter Callaghan, a columnist for the News Tribune, recently reported on the charter school battle in Washington state and reiterated Marc’s hope that present-day reformers turn their attention to the bigger challenge of greatly improving the system that educates all children in this country.  In his Top Performers blog on EdWeek.org, Marc discusses the potential of massive open online courses (MOOC), the fate of manufacturing jobs in the United States, the declining popularity of liberal arts curricula and the realistic reach of differentiated instruction.