Diane Ravitch's blog
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Diane Ravitch's blog
Charter School Leader Paid $553,000 Yearly
The Detroit Free Press ran a story about a candidate for the U.S. Senate who will have to take a big pay cut if he wins. He currently is paid $553,000 in total compensation to oversee and fundraise for three small charter schools, enrolling 1,500 students. If legislators and business groups are really concerned about [...]
How Times Change
A reader writes: I have an editorial comic on my refrigerator with two panels, one labeled 1960 and the other 2010. In both panels a boy is bringing home a failing grade. In the first panel the parents yell at the boy. In the second panel they (as well the boy) yell at the teacher. [...]
Chicago: Do Charters Increase Violence?
Chicago has just seen another upsurge in youth violence, and different observers have different solutions. This post by Parents Across America argues that what is needed to reduce youth violence is a closer connection between communities and schools. It maintains that the city’s decade-long policy of closing neighborhood schools and opening charters and schools of [...]
What Michelle Rhee Told the British Education Minister
You will not be surprised to learn that when Michelle Rhee went to England recently, she spoke of her great success in improving the D.C. public schools. Her secret? Finding the best teachers and firing the worst teachers. The only problem with her narrative is that it is not true. Her IMPACT system was imposed [...]
What Fiction Teaches Us About Our Lives
A reader responds to a post about Rollerball and Brave New World and what we learn from dystopian fiction. It is useful, I find, to step away from informational text and to view a society that operates on totally different principles. We can do that to some extent by reading history, but the contrast becomes [...]
Character Assassination?
Earlier today I posted a letter that appeared on the NYC parent blog, in which Students First was offering a gift to anyone who posted the most comments on blogs. I made no reference to the person who wrote the letter. It has been reprinted elsewhere, including the blog of Coach Bob Sikes in Florida. [...]
Washington State Charter Vote
Demand for charters is running high in Washington State –among high tech zillionaires. We will hear from the voters later. blogs.seattletimes.com/uwelectioneye/2012/07/26/charter-schools-initiative-1240-bankrolled-by-tech-millionaires/
Do You Remember?
When I was a student, I was responsible for my academic performance. This reader noticed the same thing: “I remember when standardized tests were a reflection of *my* performance and aptitudes as a student. Could our society possibly remove *more* responsibility from students and their families?
How to Win a Gift Card to Your Favorite Restaurant
A reader passed along this message. Since I too am a member of StudentsFirst, I am surprised that I did not get this email. Readers may recall that I unknowingly became a member of StudentsFirst when I signed a petition at Change.org supporting teachers or calling for higher pay for teachers. The petition did not [...]
Los Angeles Court Battle: What Is Pupil Performance?
As we have discussed in the past few days, the judge will expect teachers in Los Angeles to agree to incorporate measures of student performance into teacher evaluations. This is in response to a lawsuit initiated by EdVoice on behalf of anonymous parents, citing the Stull Act, passed many years ago before today’s era of [...]
ADL Alert! Is This Comment Acceptable?
I mentioned in a post this morning that I had received a letter form the Anti-Defamation League warning that comments on my blog displayed “insensitivity” and that I should take this opportunity to warn readers about the dangers of “hurtful analogies,” especially in referring to Hitler and the Holocaust. A reader wonders if he was [...]
UTLA Lawyer: The Scoop
I have a copy of the judge’s writ and will try to post it (it is in a pdf file and I don’t know how to copy that). Background: UTLA has resisted the imposition of value-added-assessments to evaluate teachers, knowing that research shows these measures to be highly unstable and inaccurate. UTLA was burned two [...]
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. [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 teepee until 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
UTLA Did Not Fold: UPDATE
Update: an earlier post reported that UTLA would accept evaluations based on test scores. I relied on a story in the Los Angeles Times. The lawyer for UTLA informed me this is not true. When I have more details, I will post them.
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, [...]
Critics Dispute Khan Academy, Khan Responds to Earlier Critic
Yesterday I posted a critique of the Khan Academy videos. Salman Khan responds here, on Valerie Strauss’s blog in the Washington Post, where the criticism first appeared. But now that Khan has become so high-profile, the debate intensifies. Two professors of math education review the Khan Academy videos and conclude that they are not good [...]
A Member of State Board Opposes Jindal Reforms
I received an email from Lottie Beebe, a member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. She is an experienced educator who won a seat on the board and has been a voice of sanity in a dark time. As a member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), I [...]
This Sums It Up
A reader comments on Stephen Krashen’s post predicting a dramatic increase in the amount of testing in every subject at every grade level: We really are living a dystopian novel.
How New Orleans Did Not Get Turned Around
A reader in New Orleans responded to the post about the failure of the school-closing strategy in New York City with the following comments. Despite the constant repetition of the story about the “miracle in New Orleans” by Arne Duncan and the media, the New Orleans district continues to be one of the lowest performing [...]
An Educator Runs for Office in Idaho
Clayton Trehal is running for a seat in the Idaho legislature. He is a veteran educator. He has sent me some of his columns, and I read them with fascination. Clayton teaches in an online charter school, which, as readers of this blog know, are not necessarily at the top of my hit parade. I [...]
The Connecticut Watchdog for the Public Interest
A reader reminded me of a post by blogger Jonathan Pelto about Hartford, Connecticut, that shows how districts can “game the system” to meet testing target. And that reminded me that Jon Pelto is someone you should know about. Subscribe to his blog if you want an insider’s view of education reform in Connecticut. Pelto [...]
The Americanizing of English Schools?
This writer worries that American ideas are being imported to English schools. The curious episode at the center of the article is the description of a conference about creating charter schools in the U.K., encouraged by the Conservative government’s Minister of Education Michael Gove: To see where News Corp’s interest might lie, we can look [...]
How to Educate the Public
Bruce Adams, a veteran teacher in Buffalo, New York, one of the poorest districts in the state, wrote these articles. This one explores the Hollywood myth of the good teacher, the great teacher who takes students from basic math to advanced calculus in the course of a single year, implying that anyone could do it, [...]
Conservatives Debate Common Core Standards
Recently I published a comment by Jamie Gass of the Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts explaining his opposition to the Common Core State Standards. I thought it was interesting as it showed the conservative argument against the Common Core. The comment was originally part of an email exchange between Jamie Gass and Sol Stern of the [...]
Whither Wisconsin?
Wisconsin’s leaders seem determined to degrade public education in the state. An earlier post described the expectation that the schools will produce a docile workforce. This one shows the overall plan to turn the educational system so that it meets the needs not of children, but the needs of industry.
Student Activists Take the Stage at SOS Webinar
A reader sent the following notice. I often correspond with Nikhil Goyal, whom I met on Twitter. If these young people raise their voices and rally their peers, they can drive the conversation and stop the obsession with testing and the monetizing of schooling. Please join the Webinar to talk to them and give them [...]
When Youth Get Involved
A reader in Louisiana points out that the research I cited this morning was prepared by a 19-year-old who is fighting for quality education and real science education, not religious indoctrination. This is an uphill battle in Louisiana today, in light of the state’s decision to give public funding to schools that teach creationism as [...]
Has UTLA Been Pounded into Submission?
A story in the Los Angeles Times says that the United Teachers of Los Angeles has agreed to permit test scores to be part of teachers’ evaluations. This is in response to a lawsuit brought by EdVoice on behalf of anonymous parents. EdVoice is one of those organizations funded by the Broad Foundation, the Walton [...]
Governor Rick Snyder’s Plan
Governor Snyder’s plan for education in Michigan sounds just like Romney’s and Bobby Jindal’s. The money should follow the student anywhere and everywhere, to any vendor of education services, regardless of who owns it or manages it. So, students may take their money to private schools, to hawkers of services, to online courses, whatever. Welcome [...]
Another Charter School Scandal: Ho-Hum
I guess we will have to get used to this sort of thing. Some charter schools in Florida padded the enrollment–er, made a miscalculation–of the number of students in their program. Here is the story: An audit of Coronado High School found there was no documentation to show 465 students participated in an on-the-job course. [...]
Creationists in Louisiana Win State Funding
The voucher legislation in Louisiana will send millions of dollars to Christian academies that repudiate evolution and teach creationism. Their students will never learn about evolution other than to hear it ridiculed. At least 20 of the religious schools that receive voucher students teach creationism, and as this researcher shows, that may be only the [...]
Prosecutor Pledges to Pursue Charter School Scams
After a federal grand jury returned a 62-count indictment against a charter school founder and her associates, claiming that $6.5 million in public funds was misused, the U.S. Attorney declared that he would pursue any charter school operators who abused the public trust. The attorney for the defendant said she was innocent and would offer [...]
Chicago Teachers Union Wins This One
As you may recall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago has demanded that teachers teach a longer school day without additional compensation. For that and other reasons (including rising class size), the Chicago Teachers Union took a strong stand in opposition. It took a strike vote, and 98% of those voting gave their approval, which was [...]
No Accountability for Voucher Schools in Louisiana
John White spelled out the rules for nonpublic schools receiving vouchers, and few if any will be held accountable for student performance. Most of the students taking public money with them are in kindergarten, first and second grades, where they are not tested. And there will be no consequences for the voucher schools if their [...]
Stephen Krashen: How Much Testing?
Stephen Krashen, professor of linguistics at the University of Southern California (emeritus), wrote this post to explain how the adoption of the Common Core will change testing in the nation’s schools: HOW MUCH TESTING? At first glance, the assessments now being developed to accompany the common core standards do not appear to be much more [...]
Parent Trigger Fires Again
Yesterday a judge in California ruled in a case involving the state’s so-called “parent trigger” law that parents who signed a petition to convert their school to a charter would not be permitted to rescind their signatures. They could choose to sign, but they could not change their mind afterwards. This was a law passed [...]
Tell the Truth about American Education (Math)
So-called reformers say again and again that the U.S. education system is a failure and that academic performance is declining. What they never tell you is that the test scores of American students are at their highest point in history, as recorded on the only longitudinal measure of performance, the federal test called the National [...]
Why Won’t They Let Teachers Teach?
I asked a question about the value of online learning, and this teacher responded somewhat off-topic. But what he says raises an interesting question. Are public officials and their cascade of programs making it impossible for teachers to teach? Are they destroying the last vestiges of professional autonomy? Do they talk “respect” but act top-down? [...]
Please Explain—UPDATE
No, I am not a Luddite. No one can use technology as intensively as I do and be fairly accused of being anti-technology. I am just naturally skeptical of the claims made for all miracle cures, whether it is snake oil, video game-playing, or the Land of Oz. I promise you, when I see a [...]
Who Is Paying to Privatize Public Schools in Philly?
The William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia paid for the services of the Boston Consulting Group (the group that spawned Bain). BCG recommended privatization of a large number of schools in the city, allegedly to save money. But as we know, charters don’t save money and on average, they don’t get better results. But they do [...]
Judge Rules City May Not Close 24 NYC Schools
The city and the teachers’ union went to court to battle over the city’s plan to “turnaround” 24 schools by firing thousands of teachers. The judge listened to the arguments, retired to her chambers, and returned seven minutes later to say that she was sustaining the arbitrator’s decision. The city may not lay off the [...]
News from New York City
Copied from website of NYC Educator (Arthur Goldstein): Tuesday, July 24, 2012 UFT Wins “Turnaround” NY Post’s Yoav Gonen reports on Twitter judge ruled DOE cannot restaff 24 so-called “turnaround” schools. Big loss for Mayor4Life. All his hopes to revive his flagging reputation now revolve around getting New Yorkers to stop drinking those darn Big Gulps.
Astonishing News from Philadelphia
As readers of this blog know, the School Reform Commission of Philadelphia has recommended a vast expansion of charter schools. It is acting on the recommendation of the Boston Consulting Group, business management consultants with no deep knowledge of education but a deep love of privatization. The business leaders of Philadelphia are pushing hard for [...]
ALEC in Salt Lake City This Week
I just learned that ALEC is holding a meeting this week in Salt Lake City. One block away, ALEC critics will meet to discuss privatization, school vouchers, and other ALEC activities that undermine the public sector. If you are in SLC, consider stopping by.
Are We Addicted to Our Blinking Screens?
Guess who is warning that we have become too addicted to computers, cell phones, and all those other devices? Read here. I may be addicted but I don’t think it is the usual kind of screen-addiction. I love to communicate and exchange ideas. Before I started this blog, I would tweet about 50-80 times daily. [...]
Proof that Campbell’s Law Works
A reader in Florida saw that the school grades were phony, as noted in an earlier post. But no matter how many times the grades were shown to be meaningless, everyone accepted them, organized their schools to get them, changed their instruction to raise those grades. worked to get the bonuses, worked to avoid the [...]
Teachers Must Educate Their Legislators
A reader in Wisconsin has an excellent suggestion. What do teachers do best? They educate. Time to educate your legislators: I just passed this information along to my state representative here in Wisconsin. She’s a Republican who leans to the choice, accountability, measuring aspects of school…not to mention voted to end collective bargaining with Scott [...]
Stop the Lies about U.S. Education (Reading)
I get so tired of reading about the “decline” and “failure” of American education. It is not true. A reader wrote the other day to say that NAEP scores in reading have been flat since 1971. She read it somewhere. I went to the NAEP reports, the ones produced by the federal government, and here [...]
Michelle Rhee Is Shameless
I have resisted watching the ad that Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst created and played on NBC. A reader sent it to me, and I relented. It is disgusting. It is a lie. It smears America. It smears our teachers and our students. It makes fun of obesity. A few facts: 1) the US was never first on [...]
One School’s Secrets of Success
A high school in the Bronx has figured out how to be high performing. It’s not hard. It pushes out kids with low test scores. It expels them. It works! 107 students started as freshmen, but only 58 graduated. The Bronx Health Sciences High School has a 95% graduation rate. Studies will point to it [...]
A Dialogue with the Gates Foundation
Anthony Cody has emerged, in the eyes of many people, as a voice on behalf of the teaching profession. This is quite amazing in itself because he is an experienced middle school science teacher in a high-poverty district, Oakland, California. He does not lead an organization. No one elected him. He has a regular blog [...]
Race to the Bottom with Cybercharters
In an effort to compete with the big for-profit online companies that take away their students and their state tuition money, school districts in Pennsylvania are considering the creation of their own cyber schools. This shows the fallacy of competition and the bottom line. It makes perfect economic sense to compete with K12 by opening [...]
Arne Duncan Praises Tennessee and Race to the Top
Yesterday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan had a story in the Huffington Post extolling his work in building respect for the teaching profession. He has accomplished this, he says, by insisting that teachers be evaluated based on the test scores of their students. Exhibit A of his success, he says, is Tennessee. Mr. Duncan relies [...]
What Do Parents in New York City Want Most?
Every year, as part of its customer service, the New York City Department of Education asks parents what they would like to see changed. Every year since the question has been asked, parents have chosen as their top priority: Reducing class size. In 2007, when the survey was initiated, the Mayor minimized parent concerns by [...]
About the “School of One”
One of the much-hyped new ideas of our time is the “School of One.” This is a new use of technology in the classroom. It was declared a success in 2009 by Time magazine before it was ever implemented anywhere. It was created by TFA alum, Broad-trained, ex-Edison, ex-NYC DOE executive Joel Rose and implemented [...]
Is a Struggling School Like a Failed Restaurant?
Here is a blog that says that a school with low test scores is like a failed restaurant. We know what happens when a restaurant fails. It closes. It goes bankrupt. The hungry customers go somewhere else. He is an entrepreneur who is now in the business of reforming schools. Here is his analysis: Struggling [...]
A Personal Message from David Berliner
Yesterday, readers of this blog had a homework assignment. I asked you to read David Berliner’s important article about education and inequality. Today, I wish to share with you a letter that he wrote to a list of people who read the article. I am reprinting it with his permission. I thought you might want [...]
K12 Has Found a New Market
K12 has found a new market. I wonder if the state reimbursement is higher to deliver online instruction to homebound children with special needs: Ads by Google what’s this? Special Needs: K12 K12 Provides The Support Children Deserve, w/ Free Books & Materials! www.K12.com/Florida
My Blog Turns Three Months Old
I started this blog on April 24, three months ago. I began with the following entry: I decided to start my own blog because I was overusing Twitter and treating it as a miniblog, which it isn’t. My weekly blog at Bridging Differences is great fun for me, and I love the format of exchanging [...]
Math Teacher Debunks Khan Academy
I was in a car the other day with friends who don’t pay much attention to education issues, and one asked me, “Who is this guy who figured out how to teach math to everyone?” He said he read about him in Time magazine. Thus is a myth created. I am not a reliable critic [...]
Murdoch’s Bold Move into Education Market
Make no mistake. The privatization movement is in full cry. There are big profits to be made in the education industry. Rupert Murdoch’s corporation just split into two divisions, with one focused on education and publishing, headed by Joel Klein. Says the story: Mr. Klein said being a part of the spunoff publishing company (which would [...]
On Rollerball and Brave New World
In response to a post about Bill Gates’ prediction about the future of American education, a reader writes: “Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it’s ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions.” – Rollerball (1975) I didn’t see “Rollerball” when the film was [...]
A Glimmer of Hope in Philadelphia?
Thanks to the reader who sent the link to this editorial in the Philadelpia Inquirer. The editorial warns that charter schools are no panacea; that many of them are no better than the public schools they replace; that opening charters does nothing for the vast majority left behind in public schools for which there is [...]
Vouchers for Special Education?
Marcus Winters is one of those researchers who always advocates for vouchers. He often writes opinion pieces in places like the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, extolling the virtues of vouchers and private management. In this article in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, Winters explains why New York should follow the example of [...]
This Is Your Homework: Berliner on Education and Inequality
I received a pdf. file with a copy of an important new article by David Berliner. It examines the relationship between education and inequality. I don’t know how to attach a pdf. file to this post. So I doing this. I am copying the whole article because you should read it. Consider it your homework assignment. [...]
Do Counselors Matter?
A reader responds to this post about the middle school in the Bronx: In Vallejo, we did away with our counselors in 2005. Since then we have seen our graduate rate rapidly decline, increase in violence on our secondary campuses, and other issues as well. The teachers’ union have been advocating for a return of [...]
Good Advice for Mayor Bloomberg
Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, and Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT (New York City local of AFT), have some good advice for Mayor Bloomberg: Help schools that struggle, don’t close them. Interesting that this opinion piece appears, no doubt by coincidence, in the New York Daily News on the same day that a [...]
Florida’s Grading System Has a Purpose
Florida has perfected a useless system of grading schools.Matthew DiCarlo of the Shanker Institute analyzed the school grades from Florida and found that they reflect poverty and income levels, not school quality. If the school enrolls large numbers of poor kids, it stands a high chance of getting a D or an F from the [...]
Kids Are Not Disposable
A reader responds to an earlier post about a school in the Bronx that uses data to help students, not to punish teachers and students, and notes in passing the spurious claim of “reformers” that poverty is “just an excuse” or that great teachers alone can overcome poverty: This is a great story. We try [...]
Microsoft Paperclip Goes to College
A reader sent me the following press release. It describes how college freshmen who get a scholarship will have an electronic monitoring system, where they are expected to check in and report. It appears that the system relies on the student to check in regularly and interact with his or her electronic tracking system. Maybe [...]
Did We Learn Nothing from Penn State?
A reader writes in response to the latest wacky idea from economists who offer the reward to teachers upfront, then threaten to take it away (“loss aversion”): Coincidentally, they are tearing down the statue of Joe Paterno right now. It occurred to me that the scandal at Penn State is largely because of the very [...]
This School Used Data to Help, not to Punish
A reader sent in a link to a PBS documentary about a middle school in the Bronx that faced the problems of its students and addressed them. Note that the school had guidance counselors: Check out this 13 minute PBS documentary! This is what it is all about. Not markets. Not test scores. Do these [...]
Public Education Is Not a Business
I have posted a number of comments on the subject of whether, when and how schools are like businesses. This reader says that public education is not a business. Of course, it is important to understand that the purpose of the accountability measures and the choice policies is to get us all in the habit [...]
The Failure of Bloomberg’s New Schools Strategy
The New York Daily News (owned by billionaire Mort Zuckerman, who also owns U.S. News & World Report) often runs editorials applauding the “reforms” of the Bloomberg administration. Its editorials are anti-union, anti-teacher, and consistently supportive of the policy of closing schools that have low test scores. But the New York Daily News has excellent [...]
How the Attack on Public Education Is Like the Tobacco Industry
A reader read this post about FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), a strategy intended to undermine and discredit the competition. And Bingo! The light went on. It was the same pattern on the rug. OMG! FUD jogged my memory about a book I read 2 yrs ago by Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway “Merchants of Doubt: [...]
School Letter Grades Are Preposterous
On this blog, we have often discussed how easy it is to get drawn into accepting an intolerable practice. When it is first introduced, no one objects because it is worth trying, and over time, as this innovation becomes standard practice, those who don’t like it are ignored because it’s too late, it’s done that [...]
Yong Zhao on Entrepreneurship
Yong Zhao is the brilliant scholar whose ideas challenge the orthodoxy of testing, accountability, ranking, metrics, data-based decision making, and competition. He knows the secret of Chinese test scores, and he says that if we follow their lead, we will destroy entrepreneurial thinking. Since I discovered his work, I have been dazzled by his fresh [...]
Watch Out for GERM! We Are Infected!
Pasi Sahlberg is the brilliant Finnish educator who is trying to roll back the global tide of destructive education policies. Sahlberg wrote an important book, Finnish Lessons, explaining how the Finnish education system was transformed in the past thirty years and became one of the top-performing nations in the world on PISA tests of reading, [...]
The Conservative Case Against the Common Core Standards
A few days ago, I published Professor Stephen Krashen’s letter to the New York Times, in which he explained his opposition to the Common Core standards. Professor Krashen is coming from the progressive side of the spectrum. Then Ireceived an email from Jamie Gass of the conservative Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts, which strongly opposes the [...]
Those Wacky Economists Are at It Again
Through Twitter, I met an amazing blogger named Larry Ferlazzo. When I traveled to Sacramento earlier this year, I met the real Larry Ferlazzo. Larry is a teacher who makes amazing lists of everything you need to know. He also scours the Internet for everything interesting. I constantly learn from Larry. Once again, he hit [...]
How Corporate Talk Prevails
Rita Solnet is a parent activist in Florida who works hard to support public education in Palm Beach County, in Florida, and across the nation. She is a co-founder of Parents Across America. She writes in response to the article about whether schools are and are not like businesses: I am a product of corporate [...]
Why Is Chicago Our National Model?
A reader writes about the injustice of closing schools in Chicago instead of helping them. It s odd to think that Chicago is now our national model of school reform, as Chicago continues to rank in the bottom tier on NAEP in reading and math, in fourth grade and eighth grade. In Chicago, 10 more [...]
The National Misfit Data Base
You know, you have to be really careful with satire. Some genius at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the Whozit Foundation or the U.S. Department of Education might think it is serious and jump all over the idea. Here is a truly dangerous satire by Diana Senechal. She envisions a National Misfit Data Base [...]
The New Jersey Story in a Nutshell
Schools Matter and Robert Skeels weigh in on the New Jersey charter school debate in this riveting account.