The Revolution Will Not Be Standardized
The Revolution Will Not Be Standardized Owen Davis is a writer and educator who lives in Brooklyn, NY. He currently writes curriculum for IndyKids and works as an intern at The Nation. The conditions of the testing system are the conditions of a well-honed oppressive order. The danger of losing their livelihood turns teachers and administrators into sub-oppressors, […]
War on Teachers and Women is a War on Children
The war on teachers, women and children is in full force — with sequestration in effect as Republicans keep busy finding ways to curtail women’s rights, cuts to the most vulnerable children are looming because apparently there’s just not enough money to go around. Conveniently, there’s plenty of money for more high stakes testing, Common […]
A thought on the NEA blow up. #democracy?
Just a quick thought on the comments about collective bargaining that NEA President Dennis Van Roekel made to a group of retirees at NEA Representative Assembly in Atlanta. How do educators chose our national and state union leaders? Nationally (and at least in my state of New York for NYSUT) each local elects delegates who […]
Short on money for public schools? INNOVATE!
Today is day one. The new beginning. The start. A new day…blah, blah, blah. So what happened on day one? I got the pleasure of listening to a “politician” say absolutely nothing meaningful about the future of public education. I heard “innovative” used at least 10 times during the 16 minute speech. I heard about […]
Rewarding the Awful: When the Financially Countable Replaced School Accountability in Ohio
Ohio has had some of the nation’s worst charter schools for years, thanks in large part to to the $3.8 million in state and local political contributions from corporate welfare kingpin and conservative kingmaker, David Brennan. Find many stories about Brennan and his exploitation here. Springfield Sun reporter, Tom Beyerlein, has a terrific piece from […]
Not one person can reasonably explain to me this @pitbull charter school thing. #NCSC13
I learned about this here from Jersey Jazzman. I’ve been having some fun with it here. But I’ve also been following the conversation at #NCSC13 on Twitter as I make my way to Wisconsin for a few days. I have absolutely no idea what is wrong with these people. I’m not trying to be some […]
Accountability? Start at the Top
Prompted by Anthony Cody’s “Teachers Want Accountability From the Top,” let me offer a piece of mine from 2011: Accountability? Start at the Top For nearly two decades, I taught high school English in rural upstate South Carolina. During about the last half of that part of my career, I also served as the soccer […]
Snappy Sound Bites, Lazy Journalists and Teacher Bashing
New Zealand’s education minister, Hekia Parata, said this weekend four consecutive years of quality teaching eliminates any trace of socio-economic disadvantage for the student. In her now typical teacher-bashing way, she went on to say “In New Zealand we provide 13 years. You’d think it would not be too much to expect that four of […]
NAEP and the Mapping of the School Integration/Achievement Gap
Below are some charts from the most recent 2012 NAEP Long Term Trends Report. They show trends in Reading scores that compare white-black student scores, followed by white-Latino student scores. (The same trends can be found in the Math scores, which are not offered here.) I ask to examine them to trace the trends in […]
6-30-13 @ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER
@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER: Get a TNTP Math Teacher and Neutralize Poverty Today!by Jim HornEvery time I think I’ve discovered the bottom of the corporate education (Corped) sewer, I find out that there is more down there where that came from. The New Teacher Network, which was managed for awhile by the Queen of Real Pain and Fake Gain, Michelle Rhee, keeps piling it up. With a combina