"Same building. Same community. Sometimes even the same parents ..." writes
Steve Brill, implying that charter schools face the same challenges as neighborhood schools.
Like the "self-righteous reformers" he praises, Brill does not know that it is politics that determines whether schools can enforce their attendance, behavioral, and academic standards. When one school is empowered, neighboring schools are further damaged as the most challenging students are dumped on them, often creating an extreme critical mass of suffering children and perpetuating the blame game.
Brill does not even know enough about public education to ask why more of that testing is supposedly necessary to remove ineffective teachers or to consider the better
Just what DC needs - more education groups. National Journal's Eliza Krigman offers a
late, weak look at Bellwether. Hooray, they have a
websiteand a logo. But the real news on the edgroups front this week is the unveiling of EDI, Education Delivery Institute, the new outfit founded by the UK's Michael Barber, created by EdTrust and Achieve, and headed by GA
What do the people at the Department and on the Hill think about Schnur taking all the credit for coming up with RTTT? Brill writes like he's Bruce Weber and Schnur's a half-naked Marky Mark. In what ways could RTTT
conceivablyovershadow health care reform? None that I can think of. Who cares about TFA members losing their jobs when they'll leave for law school in a year or two anyway? My sympathy's with the three-to five year folks. What was the best line in the whole piece
(
The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand )? Saying that RTTT presenters from NYC looked like they were in a "hostage tape" (or maybe the line about reformers being snobbish and self-righteous). What makes this journalism not commentary? Brill's reformy bias is clear right from the get go. He makes a slew of
