Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, September 20, 2013

9-20-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

$27.50 paper



TN Achievement School Distict Official Granted Charter Approval by TN Achievement School District
Posted at Memphis Schools Matter:After Bobby White got national attention on Fox & Friends by enforcing a ban on baggy pants at Westside Middle School in Memphis, where he was principal a couple of years back, White has become the darling of the State-funded effort to corporatize and charterize Memphis schools, per the Bill Gates design.White has his own consulting business, has hired on as Di



The Greed of Big Pharma + Total Compliance Reformer Schools = More Child Doping
From Alternet, a clip from an excerpt of this book:Prices of ADHD meds at the middle dose for ninety pills on Drugstore.com in 2011 were Concerta, $540; Vyvanse, $532; Intuniv, $500; Adderall, $278; and Ritalin, $191. The price of the most common antidepressants, like Prozac, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, Cymbalta, and Wellbutrin, for ninety pills, was around $380. Two of the drugs prescribed to Rebecc


Innovation? No Thank You
There is a problem with really successful people: They tend to believe they are incredibly capable in every field, and that most other people are not.Success is a deluding experience, and if there is anything that innovators are, it is delusional—delusional that being innovative is greater than having field experience or expertise.In education reform, delusion is rampant. And the key source of all

Why Didn't School "Reformers" Respect Dunbar High School's History?
Alison Stewart’s First Class begins with her mother, Carol Stewart, as she watches the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Carol, a retired biology teacher, marvels, “What a magnificent display of what Homo Sapiens is capable of in his most civilized state?” That evening, when asked about Washington D.C.’s Dunbar High School marching band, Carol comments, “I can’t believe those girls were swit

  The Unmeasurable, Untestable You
I think you will agree that the following absolutely negates the "value" of the findings of any "standardized" testing in schools (and anywhere else for that matter)...or rather, it encourages us to understand the value of testing as producing outcomes that benefit those implementing the testing.  That is to say, testing does not serve to illuminate intrinsic "failures&quo
9-19-13 Schools Matter
Schools Matter: Alison Stewart's Great History of D.C.'s Dunbar High SchoolAlison Stewart’s First Class brings us full circle. Actually, Stewart guides us through a variety of recurring social, moral, and educational cycles that undoubtedly will continue to repeat themselves in one way or another. Her history of the rise and fall of Washington D.C.’s elite Dunbar High School tells a story that can