Privatization in Pennsylvania: Worth Your Attention
One of my most valuable sources of information is an email blast from the Keystone State Education Coalition, which reports on school-related news from Pennsylvania and links to articles in the Pennsylvania press.
I have been watching with fascination and horror the ongoing efforts of Governor Tom Corbett to undermine public education in his state.
One of his closest education advisors and campaign donors also owns the state’s largest charter school.
He now wants to take over and replace K-6 public education in Pottstown with a charter school owned and
I have been watching with fascination and horror the ongoing efforts of Governor Tom Corbett to undermine public education in his state.
One of his closest education advisors and campaign donors also owns the state’s largest charter school.
He now wants to take over and replace K-6 public education in Pottstown with a charter school owned and
A Market Failure: Kids, Teachers, Tough Luck
A reader sent an article about a for-profit firm in Pennsylvania that runs four alternative schools for “disciplinary” students. It furloughed its 50 teachers and administrators and closed down without warning. What happens to the students? The teachers? No one knows.
The teachers are in the dark about whether they have jobs in a month. They are paid very low salaries: $31,000 if they have benefits, $36,000 without benefits. The company is owned by the son of a Congressman. All calls are referred to a lawyer’s office, which has no information.
This is the sector that Republican governors want to expand. Government contracts with minimal or no oversigh
The teachers are in the dark about whether they have jobs in a month. They are paid very low salaries: $31,000 if they have benefits, $36,000 without benefits. The company is owned by the son of a Congressman. All calls are referred to a lawyer’s office, which has no information.
This is the sector that Republican governors want to expand. Government contracts with minimal or no oversigh
Do Leafy Suburbs Need Charter Schools?
Up until now, the argument for charter schools has been that they will “save” poor black and Hispanic children from their terrible public schools.
We have often heard the claim that the proponents of charter schools are leading the civil rights movement of our era.
But now it seems the civil rights leaders want to move to the suburbs.
Not to save black and brown and poor children, but to offer more consumer choice to the children trapped in
We have often heard the claim that the proponents of charter schools are leading the civil rights movement of our era.
But now it seems the civil rights leaders want to move to the suburbs.
Not to save black and brown and poor children, but to offer more consumer choice to the children trapped in
Another Virtual Charter School Scandal
These scandals happen so often that at some point they won’t be newsworthy.
A virtual school in Ohio was put on a one-year probation because an audit showed it has a deficit of $800,000.
Hard to know how it ran at a deficit when virtual schools get full tuition and don’t have any of the expenses of brick-and-mortar schools.
And one minor detail was that the charter had hired the wife, brother and son of the superintendent in the district
Does the Public Have a Right to Know about Broad Academy?
A virtual school in Ohio was put on a one-year probation because an audit showed it has a deficit of $800,000.
Hard to know how it ran at a deficit when virtual schools get full tuition and don’t have any of the expenses of brick-and-mortar schools.
And one minor detail was that the charter had hired the wife, brother and son of the superintendent in the district
Does the Public Have a Right to Know about Broad Academy?
We have visited the travails of the Huntsville, Alabama, schools before.
This is where a Broad-trained superintendent decided that recalcitrant kids should be sent off to live in a teepeeuntil they learned to behave.
Then we learned that he bought 22,000 laptops for the district.
And this district laid off 150 experienced teachers to save money, but has given a contract to Teach for America to bring in rookie teachers.
Now we hear from a parent about life for his child in the Huntsville schools, where change is a fact of life. .
A Broad-trained superintendent in North Carolina left Michelle Rhee’s team and was hired by a Tea Party majority of the local school board in Wake County, North Carolina that wanted to eliminate the district’s
No Consultant Left Behind
This is where a Broad-trained superintendent decided that recalcitrant kids should be sent off to live in a teepeeuntil they learned to behave.
Then we learned that he bought 22,000 laptops for the district.
And this district laid off 150 experienced teachers to save money, but has given a contract to Teach for America to bring in rookie teachers.
Now we hear from a parent about life for his child in the Huntsville schools, where change is a fact of life. .
A Broad-trained superintendent in North Carolina left Michelle Rhee’s team and was hired by a Tea Party majority of the local school board in Wake County, North Carolina that wanted to eliminate the district’s
No Consultant Left Behind
Over the past decade, since the adoption of No Child Left Behind and the introduction of Race to the Top, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: a proliferation of businesses that “consult” with schools, school districts, and states.
It started slowly, and then it mushroomed. I remember when NCLB started, and overnight there were hundreds of tutoring firms created to offer supplementary services. Some of these firms had never tutored anyone before, but they got clients by offering prizes and cash inducements to principals to send them students. Some of them submitted inflated bills. Some of them should never have been approved in the first place. See here and here andhere and here and here.
Every time a new federal program was launched, a new bunch of private-sector consultants popped up to get a piece of the pie.
Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grants were a new jackpot or honeypot for consultants. In Denver,
Are You Offended If Someone Says “Hitler” or “Holocaust”?
It started slowly, and then it mushroomed. I remember when NCLB started, and overnight there were hundreds of tutoring firms created to offer supplementary services. Some of these firms had never tutored anyone before, but they got clients by offering prizes and cash inducements to principals to send them students. Some of them submitted inflated bills. Some of them should never have been approved in the first place. See here and here andhere and here and here.
Every time a new federal program was launched, a new bunch of private-sector consultants popped up to get a piece of the pie.
Race to the Top and the School Improvement Grants were a new jackpot or honeypot for consultants. In Denver,
Are You Offended If Someone Says “Hitler” or “Holocaust”?
A few days ago, I received an email from the Anti-Defamation League of New York City saying that it had received “several complaints regarding references and analogies to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust that appear in the comments section of your blog.”
It went on:
“In researching the complaint, we see that you defended the postings on free speech grounds. As a staunch supporter of free speech and the First Amendment, ADL has historically fought hate and offensive comments not by censoring, but by fighting bad speech with good speech. While you certainly have the right to leave the material up, we believe you have an opportunity here to address the insensitivity of the comments with your
What Went Wrong in Louisiana?
It went on:
“In researching the complaint, we see that you defended the postings on free speech grounds. As a staunch supporter of free speech and the First Amendment, ADL has historically fought hate and offensive comments not by censoring, but by fighting bad speech with good speech. While you certainly have the right to leave the material up, we believe you have an opportunity here to address the insensitivity of the comments with your
What Went Wrong in Louisiana?
A reader posted the following comment.
As a public school teacher on the Northshore across the lake from New Orleans, educated in parochial schools for most of my elementary and high school years, I have been wanting to discuss the truth of education in the State of Louisiana for years, but it cannot be discussed publically, even though most people know the truth, a person could get killed or maimed at worst or at best, fired from a teaching position by openly speaking the unspeakable in today’s irrationally violent world. Under federal mandatory desegregation in 1969, I student taught English IV at a public high school in a Northshore Parish. Prior to this law, schools across the State were segregated into all black or all white public schools—“separate but equal” they called it. My senior high school
The Debate Continues Re: Match-Relay Graduate Schools of Education
As a public school teacher on the Northshore across the lake from New Orleans, educated in parochial schools for most of my elementary and high school years, I have been wanting to discuss the truth of education in the State of Louisiana for years, but it cannot be discussed publically, even though most people know the truth, a person could get killed or maimed at worst or at best, fired from a teaching position by openly speaking the unspeakable in today’s irrationally violent world. Under federal mandatory desegregation in 1969, I student taught English IV at a public high school in a Northshore Parish. Prior to this law, schools across the State were segregated into all black or all white public schools—“separate but equal” they called it. My senior high school
The Debate Continues Re: Match-Relay Graduate Schools of Education
Readers of this blog are familiar with the continuing debate about two new “graduate schools of education,” created by charter schools to train charter school teachers. I put quote marks around the term for “graduate schools of education” inasmuch as I don’t see how anything can be called a graduate school that has no scholars, no curriculum, and no disputation.
Carol Burris received a copy of the training manual for the Match school from an anonymous student. In this post for Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet, Burris analyzes the program and the pedagogy. She seeks to answer the question: What are charter teachers taught in their custom graduate school?
Carol Burris received a copy of the training manual for the Match school from an anonymous student. In this post for Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet, Burris analyzes the program and the pedagogy. She seeks to answer the question: What are charter teachers taught in their custom graduate school?