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Here’s five social innovation links we are clicking on today:

1. Amplify-New Profit Blog: America Forward’s Big #EdPolicy Day on Capitol Hill “America Forward, New Profit’s policy arm, has been actively involved in recent debate around the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the future of education and learning in America. Last week, America Forward brought together a great group of its coalition members to meet with Members of Congress to discuss these issues and America Forward’s priorities in anticipation of the full Senate taking up the Every Child Achieves Act to reauthorize ESEA later this month.”

2. The New York Times: Some Schools Embrace Demands for Education Data “Data has become a dirty word in some education circles, seen as a proxy for an obsessive focus on tracking standardized test scores. But some school districts, taking a cue from the business world, are fully embracing metrics, recording and analyzing every scrap of information related to school operations. Their goal is to help improve everything from school bus routes and classroom cleanliness to reading comprehension and knowledge of algebraic equations.”

3. NPR: Preschool By State: Who’s Spending And What’s It Buying? “Are you a glass half-full kind of person? Or glass half-empty? Depending on your answer, you’ll find the new report on state-funded preschool programs from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University either delightfully encouraging or downright depressing.”

4. The Huffington Post: How One-On-One Tutoring Is Creating Possibilities For LA’s Homeless Youth “For the nonprofit School On Wheels, change begins when people focus on what they can do to help. ‘We can’t end homelessness, but we can help a student experiencing homelessness with their school work and studies,’ says Sinead Chilton, the Marketing Director at School on Wheels. Chilton has been with the organization for more than 10 years. School On Wheels is a nonprofit that provides one-on-one tutoring to homeless children throughout Southern California. Chilton started out tutoring and now she’s taken on a director role in addition to weekly visits with students.”

5. Stanford Social Innovation Review: What Is Community Anyway? “Our understanding of community can help funders and evaluators identify, understand, and strengthen the communities they work with.”