A Tragic Day for Public Education in North Carolina
Yvonne Brannan of Public Schools First NC sent the following comment: “It is a tragic day in NC for our public schools, their teachers and students. The cuts to education reflect a very aggressive attack on public education. Eliminating $110 million for teacher assistants, eliminating teacher tenure, eliminating class size limits for K-3, no raise again this year, all of these unnecessary cuts wi
NC Legislature: $5.1 Million for TFA
As reported earlier, the far-right North Carolina legislature voted to start vouchers and to end teacher tenure. But there was good news for TFA: the far-right Republican majority allocated $5.1 million for Teach for America. The governor’s education advisor Eric Guckian is an alum of TFA. TFA presents itself as passionately devoted to equity, but its major funding comes from the far-right Walton
Why Teacher Tenure Matters
I reported a few minutes ago that the extremist North Carolina legislature agreed to end teacher tenure. I pointed out that academic freedom will disappear. Joan Baratz Snowden, who has studied and written about the teaching profession for many years, says the consequences are even worse than loss of academic freedom. She writes: “Seems to me the more critical issue is not so much academic freedo
Breaking News: NC Legislature Approves Vouchers, Ends Teacher Tenure
The North Carolina legislature reached agreement on a budget that initiates vouchers in 2014 and ends teacher tenure. The Republican leadership hailed the budget deal as a huge improvement for public education, which of course it is not. Vouchers are terrible public policy that will harm the public education system by draining dollars from it to fund religious schools. No voucher experiment in th
Lance Hill reports that Steve Barr has hired a principal at a salary of $115,000 for a charter school with an enrollment of 13 freshman students. Perhaps the reason enrollment is so low is that Barr hyped the schools as “the most dangerous school in America” on a TV show in Oprah’s channel. Some parents pulled their kids out. But now Barr can demonstrate how he “turned around” the “most dangerous
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-21-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: A Teacher’s Letter to Bill GatesTeacherbiz writes a friendly but very candid letter to Big Brother Bill Gates. Teacherbiz has some good advice: “You know that feeling you get when you think you’re doing something good—and then you realize you’re actually doing harm? I’ve experienced it, and it’s not a good feeling—and the only way