Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

UPDATE: Joy Resmovits: Michelle Rhee Meets Jon Stewart;'You Can't Have No Accountability'; Texas School Funding Unconstitutional: Ed Today

Joy Resmovits: Michelle Rhee Meets Jon Stewart; Texas School Funding Unconstitutional: Ed Today:



Michelle Rhee On The Daily Show: 'You Can't Have No Accountability'

Last night, former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee stopped by The Daily Show to promote her memoir, "Radical."



"Radical" traces Rhee's development from her childhood in Toledo, Ohio to the creation of StudentsFirst, the national lobbying group she created in 2010 to spread her policy agenda from coast to coast. Rhee has become the standard bearer of what's known as the "education reform" movement, a group of advocates that push policies such as charter schools and teacher evaluations that rely on students' standardized test scores.

Host Jon Stewart's mother is a teacher, so he pressed Rhee on many of these policies, especially his (and 


Michelle Rhee Meets Jon Stewart; Texas School Funding Unconstitutional: Ed Today

Rhee The Radical? Former Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee continues the book tour for her memoir, "Radical," stopping last night at the Daily Show. She talked to host Jon Stewart about standardized testing, school accountability, and poverty. Stewart's mother was a teacher, so it's always interesting to see him interview education figures. For now, watch the interview here. More on that soon. And stay tuned -- Rhee is slated to appear on HuffPost Live at 1:30 p.m., so set your, er, Google calendars to remind you!

Texas School Funding Unconstitutional? Yet another school funding court case in Texas has come to the conclusion that the Lone Star State's schools aren't adequately financed. A district court judge ruled Mondaythat Texas's school funding formula is unconstitutional for two reasons: it doesn't spend enough money on schools, and that money isn't allocated fairly between school districts. "It was a great relief," said Wayne Pierce, executive director of the Equity Center, an umbrella group for 675 school districts that sued over the "hopelessly broken" funding system, according to NPR. Over the last two years, Texas has cut school funding by $5.4 billion, and uses a so-called "Robin Hood law" to make school funding more equitable -- but plaintiffs said the law doesn't work that way in practice. NPR called an appeal "all but certain," with the case expected to wind its way into the Texas Supreme Court.

Exploring NYC's T-Val Failure? In this week's Gotham column, the New York Times's Michael