I am fortunate to have received scholarships to attend two education conferences in the next few weeks.

I leave this morning for the first, the annual American Educational Research Association meeting in San Diego. It's the biggest gathering of educational researchers in the world. I'm grateful to the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, which provided the funding for me and about 10 other education reporters to attend. I'll be blogging from the meeting the next few days. The agenda is enormous, with dozens of sessions going on at any given time. (You can log in as a guest to see my options.) Linda Darling-Hammond, who advised President Obama during his campaign, is expected to speak at a dinner tonight about his education agenda.

I'll return on a redeye Wednesday night and will be back in Baltimore for the school closure hearings that start Thursday.

Then, from April 30 to May 2, I will attend the annual Education Writers Association conference in Washington. Arne Duncan is among those scheduled to speak.