Diane Ravitch's blog
Cody: Is the Common Core the Rosetta Stone of Corporate Reform?
Crushing Labor Unions and the Middle Class: Is This the American Way?
Mother Jones: Where Does the Gates Foundation Invest Its Billions?
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DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG
The New York Times has a predictable editorial about gifted students, referring to PISA scores as evidence of failure and complaining that educators are not nurturing the talents of the best and brightest students. What is notable about the editorial is what is missing: 1. Little to nothing about budget cuts that have devastated most state and district education budgets in recent years. 2. Little
This is a wide-ranging interview with Christine Romans on CNN. Romans has two school-age children, and I think she gets it. It only takes about 3 minutes, and we cover a lot of ground. I say things that are obvious and common sense but seldom heard on mainstream television.
Why Is Exxon Mobil So Aggressive in Promoting Common Core?
It has become clear that the nation’s biggest corporations are avid supporters of the Common Core State Standards. None has been more aggressive in supporting Common Core than Exxon Mobil. Although normally you would expect to see ads from this company promoting the virtue of their products, they have invested large sums in promoting Common Core on television, YouTube, and news print. In this disc
Indiana: Public Schools Show Stronger Performance than Charter Schools or Voucher Schools
At some point the PR bubble will burst, and the public will realize that school choice solves no problems and that charters and vouchers perform no better and often worse than regular public schools. Blogger Steve Hinnefeld analyzed Indiana’s growth scores and found that public schools usually showed greater gains than charters or religious schools. Hinnefeld writes: “You can download 2012-13 g
USA Today: U.S. Has a Poverty Crisis, Not a Schools Crisis
Believe it or not, USA Today published a powerful article by Oliver Thomas, a member of its Board of Contributors, acknowledging that the latest PISA rankings reflect the crisis of poverty in the United States. Our Students in low-poverty schools are doing fine; some analyses place them at the very top. But the more poverty, the lower the test scores. He writes: “As researchers Michael Rebell an
EduShyster: What Happened to Free-Market Schooling in Sweden
EduShyster has written a hilarious and accurate description of Sweden’s love affair with privatization. School choice advocates swooned over the Swedish model. But something very bad happened on the Road to Utopia. Read her post and learn from it.
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Anthony Cody, in a brilliant column, asks whether Common Core will be the Rosetta Stone of Corporate reform. The Rosetta Stone, he explains, made it possible to decipher ancient languages: ” In the year 1799, a French soldier discovered an ancient stone in Egypt that had been inscribed with a royal proclamation in the year 196 BC, in three languages; Ancient Greek, Demotic, and Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The same text in all three languages allowed scholars to crack the code of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and since then, the term “Rosetta Stone” has come to signify a means by which hidden c
A recent article by business columnist Eduardo Porter in the “New York Times” was titled “Americanized Labor Policy Is Spreading in Europe.” This is what the “Americanization of labor policy” means: “In 2008, 1.9 million Portuguese workers in the private sector were covered by collective bargaining agreements. Last year, the number was down to 300,000. “Spain has eased restrictions on collective layoffs and unfair dismissal, and softened limits on extending temporary work, allowing workers to be kept on fixed-term contracts for up to four years. Ireland and Portugal have frozen the minimum w
Alex Park and Jaeah Lee wrote an article in “Mother Jones” detailing what they call the Gates Foundation’s “hypocritical investments.” While professing concern for children’s health, they are heavily invested in companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. It also has a major investment in Walmart, as well as smaller sums in privately managed prisons. While professing concern about climate change, Gates invests in many oil and gas companies, like Exxonmobil. Do as I say, not as I do.
TODAY
Paul Horton Writes a Letter to the Chicago Tribune
Paul Horton, a history teacher at the University of Chicago Lab School, wrote this letter to the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune: Dear Tribune Editorial Board, You will have us all (teachers) drinking Hemlock very soon with the absurd editorials on Education that you publish. You should interview Nobel Laureate Gary Becker. He spoke for our students yesterday, and he fully supports all of
YESTERDAY
South Carolina Teacher: Merit Pay Is a Bad Joke
Patrick Hayes is a third-grade teacher in Charleston, South Carolina, who is bravely battling those who are destroying public education and the teaching profession in the guise of “reform.” South Carolina has one of the highest numbers of children living in poverty, which is a reliable predictor of poor academic performance. But reformers don’t talk about poverty. They talk about “bad” teachers,
Rhee: America Is Failing Its Kids: We Need Common Core
Michelle Rhee argues that the PISA scores prove that America is failing its kids. She believes that the way to get higher test scores for all is higher standards, more tests, more rigor. She also promotes charters, vouchers, merit pay, and evaluation of teachers based on student test scores. Rhee has a close personal association with the Common Core standards. David Coleman, the architect of the
Shepherd: What Is Wrong with Common Core ELA
Robert Shepherd has written curriculum, textbooks, assessments, and lots else in recent decades. Here he explains what is wrong with the Common Core’s version of English Language Arts: The CCSS in ELA appear to have been written by complete NOVICES based upon a. poorly conceived, unexamined notions about how the outcomes of ELA education should be characterized and measured AND b. vague memories o
Retired Special Ed Teacher Chastises Commissioner King and Regent Tisch
At the Manhattan forum convened by State Commissioner John King and the chair of the Regents Merryl Tisch, a mother gave this moving speech, which she sent with permission to post. She wrote; “Commissioner King, Chancellor Tisch, thank you for the opportunity to share with you tonight. My name is Lorri Gumanow, and my husband and I are the proud parents of a very talented 13-year old public scho
Schneider: Who or What Is the “Center for Union Facts?”
On December 10, the “Center for Union Facts” published a very expensive full-page ad attacking Randi Weingarten, the AFT, and teachers’ unions, blaming them for the PISA scores. In this post, Mercedes Schneider explores the “Center for Union Facts.” As she says, don’t believe the name. It is a corporate-funded, rightwing foundation-funded operation whose goal is to destroy unions.
Rightwing Group Attacks Unions in “New York Times”
A few days ago, a little-known group called the Center for Union Facts published a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming Randi Weingarten, the AFT, and teachers’ unions en bloc for the mediocre performance of the United States on PISA. The “center” says that the unions oppose merit pay, and that’s why the scores of 15-year-olds are not at the top of the world. This ad is patently absurd. Lea
John Thompson: How Mayor de Blasio Can Fix Some of Bloomberg’s Failures
Historian-teacher John Thompson analyzes a recent review of the Bloomberg administration’s education initiatives and explains how the private education funders wasted $2 billion. The great mistake of the Bloomberg administration was its unalloyed faith in accountability, the threats of punishment and sanctions. As the budget expanded, the number of reading specialists for the early grades plumme
Our Hero, Bruce Baker
In the world of education research, few scholars have been as forthright and reliable as Bruce Baker of Rutgers. Whenever a study is published that makes miraculous claims, we can count on Bruce to put it under the microscope and see what was left out. Bruce has taught in high schools and understands that teaching is a difficult career and that progress is at best incremental. He is fearless, insi
DEC 12
Breaking News: Pearson Foundation Fined Millions for Violating Laws
New York state’s attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman won an agreement from the Pearson Foundation to pay $7.7 million in fines for using its charitable activities to advance its corporation’s profit-making arm. According to the story by Javier Hernandez in the New York Times, “An inquiry by Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general, found that the foundation had helped develop
Last Night in Red Hook…UPDATE
Last night I led a discussion of my book at P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The community is right on the water facing Néw York harbor and the Statue of Liberty. It is cut off from the mainsream of Brooklyn by a major highway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. It has working docks, Ikea, and a gourmet supermarket called Fairway. It also has a large number of public housing projects and great ethnic
Washington State Court Ruling: Figure It Out Yourself
Charter opponents in Washington celebrated a court ruling that charter schools are not “common schools” and may not be funded as such. Charter advocates celebrated that the judge upheld the rest of the initiative. So the law may be implemented without public funding. Or something. Appeal on the way.
Breaking News: Court Declares Washington State Charter Law Unconstitutional
Last fall, there was a hard-fought election in Washington State over charter schools. Voters had turned them down three times but this time was different: Bill Gates, the Walton family, and a passel of super-rich people gathered $10 million or so to support the charter idea and their initiative passed by a small margin. However, today a judge ruled the law unconstitutional because the state consti
Some Questions About NYC’s Proposed School Without Walls
In a parting shot, the New York City Department of Education announced the launch of a “school without walls,” in collaboration with Microsoft. There would be no physical brick-and-mortar school. Microsoft would arrange internships for students. Questions: Who will teach the students such subjects as biology, chemistry, physics, algebra, geometry, and calculus? Will they learn history or read li
NYC School Officials Plan a School Without Walls
As the clock ticks on, and the days of the Bloomberg administration dwindle, it is still creating new schools. The latest innovation is called the School Without Walls. Kids will spend their high school years without a high school! Lisa Fleisher reports in the Wall Street Journal: “Microsoft will partner with New York City to create what schools officials describe as a high school without walls
Reader: How Cyber-Charters Crush Small School Districts
This reader reports fro Pennsylvania, which has 16 cyber-charters, all drawing money from local school districts. “We kind of know what happens. In PA, we have limited brick-and-mortar charters, but we’ve been dealing with cyber-charters for a few years now. “It is a crushing formula for reimbursement– the state gives the charter the per-capita cost for each student. That generally translates int
TFA Expands Its Reach to mid-Career Professionals, Veterans
If Teach for America has its way, our nation’s schools will soon be filled with temporary teachers at the bottom of the salary scale, most of whom will leave after two-three years. Goodbye, expensive experienced teachers! If TFA teachers are as great as they say, why doesn’t TFA require a five-year commitment? Politico reports today: “TFA REACHES OUT TO DREAMERS: Teach for America has already exp
EduShyster: No More Conflict of Interest Rules!
EduShyster retains the capacity for astonishment and surprise. In this post, she identifies some seemingly blatant conflicts of interest on the part of big players in the education reform world. Yet no one cares. Ethics? What’s that? She calls it “carerruption.” I don’t feel like getting a lawyer’s letter today threatening to sue me for defamation, so I will ask you to read EduShyster yourself.
Charter Founder in Ohio Makes Large Political Contributions, Gets Rich
The blogger Plunderbund here documents the conditions in which certain major charter operators in Ohio become financially very successful. In this instance, he tells the story of William Lager, founder of ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow), who has generously donated $1.3 million to the Ohio Republican Party in the last decade. His generosity has been amply repaid with generous state fu
Anthony Cody: Has ASCD Embraced Free-Market Reforms?
In this provocative post, Anthony Cody takes ASCD to task for its tilt toward market-based reforms and its advocacy for Common Core. Cody notes that ASCD has received more than $3 million from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core. That disappoints him, as he thinks that ASCD should be an organization that debates so sweeping a change as Common Core. In its publications and conferences, say
This is What Real Tech Literacy Looks Like
Last Sunday, the Néw York Times had a lengthy editorial lamenting the sorry state of math education in the U.S. the editorial said that our kids find math boring, so they don’t major in math or become engineers. The Times barely mentioned the pernicious effects of standardized testing, which surely mars math tedious. But the Times writers should visit Pasadena, California, which has developed a m
Tom Loveless on Shanghai: The Scores Are Rigged, and OECD Doesn’t Care
Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution calls on the OECD and PISA to stop permitting China to present data that does not represent the full population of students. For one thing, only Shanghai is tested–and Shanghai is not representative of China. Loveless writes that Shanghai’s #1 ranking on all subjects is misleading because it excludes the children of migrant workers. He writes: Shanghai has
Wall Street’s Plans for the Future of K-12 Education
When Frank Bruni wrote a column saying that American students are too “coddled,” he added a gratuitous swipe at “leftwing paranoiacs” who ”imagine some conspiracy to ultimately privatize education and create a new frontier of profits for money-mad plutocrats.” Well, here is another point of view, called “Wall Street is Designing the Future of Public Education.” It appears on Salon.com. I think Bru
DEC 11
Anthony Cody: Common Core and Creation Myths
Anthony Cody has discovered that there are many organizations that have published a list of “myths and facts” about Common Core standards. There seems to be a concerted effort to convince educators and the public that the standards were written by educators, or by the states, or by a huge collaboration of educators and administrators and governors, all working together. As Cody shows, there was no
NY Daily News: KIPP in NYC Has “Padded Room” for Disobedient Students
Rachel Monahan and Ben Chapman of the New York Daily News (whose editorial board strongly supports charter schools) report that the KIPP Star School in Washington Heights (upper Manhattan) has a tiny padded room where students are sent to “calm down.” According to the story: A tiny padded room at KIPP Star Washington Heights Elementary School was a real-life nightmare for two young boys who were r
Is TFA Your Favorite Charity?
Teach for America is a powerful organization. It has collected hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years. One of its most recent IRS forms showed $300 million in assets. Its board of directors includes some of the nation’s biggest corporate and media leaders. Yet TFA is considered a charity, and many corporate funders ask you to make gifts to it, as if were the Red Cross or a homeless
Pasi Sahlberg Explains Finnish Philosophy of Education to Rhode Island Policymakers
Rhode Island won a Race to the Top grant, so of course the state is obsessed with competition, accountability, and high-stakes evaluations of students, teachers, principals, and schools. Fortunately, the great Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg was invited by the University of Rhode Island to describe an alternate universe where entering teachers meet the highest standards, students do not take stand
The Education Agenda of the Walton Family
This post is a comprehensive review of the education priorities of the Walton Family Foundation. The Walton family has made many billions of dollars from the Walmart stores. Walmart comes into a region and undersells every local retail store. In time, the mom-and-pop stores–beloved community institutions handed down in some cases from generation to generation– close their doors, and mom and pop be
A Parent Reports on John King’s Stacked Forum in Brooklyn
New York Commissioner John King held his first meeting in New York City on the rushed implementation of the Common Core and the tests whose cut score was set so high that only 31% of students across the state passed. Among English learners, only 3% passed. Among students with disabilities, only 5% passed. The pass rates among African American and Hispanic students was 15-18%. In NYC, the passing r
Eva’s Success in Getting Whatever She Wanted from Bloomberg Administration
Eva Moskowitz is a tough taskmaster. Lucky for her, the New York City Department of Education was willing to do whatever she demanded, no matter the cost. As this article reports, what Eva wants, Eva gets. That may explain why Eva closed her schools this fall and led a protest march across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate her opposition to Bill de Blasio’s demand that her charter chain pay rent
Amy Prime: What Is the Right Answer to This Test Question?
Amy Prime teaches second grade in Iowa. She wrote this post about a confusing question. The following question appeared on a test for her students. She posted it on her Facebook page to see how adults would answer it. Here is the question: Read and answer the following: Animal Alley rescued Cloud and Clip. One night, a helper saw two baby animals. They were hungry. They were dirty. The helper fed
Thanks to StudentsFirst, John King Gets a Friendly Forum in New York
Commissioner John King finally got a friendly forum about Common Core. At the only hearing in Brooklyn, a borough in New York City with four million residents, every speaker but one praised Common Core and many accused its critics of racism. Reports from those on the scene (directly to me) as well as in the media said that the speakers’ list consisted of people who were affiliated with Michelle Rh
Tom Loveless: Does the Common Core Matter?
In the spring of 2012, Brookings scholar Tom Loveless set off a firestorm when he wrote a study of the Common Core State Standards and concluded that they would make little or no difference in student achievement. He did not pass judgment on the quality of the standards but on the question of how much standards matter. He wrote: “The finding is clear: The quality of state standards has not mattere
The Most Important Post of the Day: The Rightwing Assault on the Public Sector
Jan Resseger here links to a startling expose that appeared in the Guardian, a U.K. newspaper. The Guardian gained access to secret documents showing the ties that bind a far-right network of public policy groups called the State Policy Network. There is a public policy institute in almost every state, all sharing the same far-right ideology. This group, which operates in tandem with the ALEC agen
DEC 10
No, the District of Columbia Is Not a National Model
Despite its recent gains on the 2013 NAEP, the District of Columbia is not a national model. It remains the lowest performing urban district in the nation. Its policy of test-and-punish-and-fire have produced a startlingly high attrition rate among teachers. Churn is not good for schools or for children or for building a culture of collaboration. Few of the principals hired by Rhee remain in the s
North Carolina: Teacher Attrition Reaches 5-Year High
Teachers in North Carolina are leaving their schools at a significantly higher rate this year. The governor and legislature have targeted teachers for punitive measures, and they are succeeding in making teaching a less desirable career path. Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch reports: “In 2008-09, only 35.55 percent of teachers who had tenure, also known as “career status,” left their jobs. That
Sweden: Market-Based Reforms in Big Trouble
Privatizers like to point to Sweden as their model (conveniently ignoring Chile, where the military dictator Pinochet’s advisors embraced Milton Friedman’s free-market policies). Since a conservative government came to power, Sweden has vouchers, publicly financed private schools, and for-profit schools. It is everything that ALEC, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Tom Corbett, and Rick Snyd
Why Does John King Stubbornly Cling to His Views, No Matter What Public Says?
This article arrived in my email unexpectedly, and I decided to post it because it contains a good analysis of how decision makers get stuck defending bad decisions. Sean Brady explains the dangers of cognitive bias. He writes that it is “becoming increasingly apparent that he [King] may be doing more to undermine the implementation of the Common Core than he is doing to support it. For example,
AFT Video: The Real Lessons of PISA
The AFT prepared an excellent video about the real lessons of PISA. It shows graphically what the high-performing nations are doing. It shows that poverty matters. It shows that equitable resources matter. It shows that teachers need to be supported and to work in a collaborative environment. It shows the importance of early childhood education. The PISA report offers no support for current
Why Shaun Johnson Should Renew His AERA Membership
Shaun Johnson eloquently explains here why he is letting his AERA membership lapse. In brief, he is disappointed that AERA has not taken a leadership role in defending public education against the corporate-funded assault on its very existence. But, Shaun, don’t give up. AERA invited me to give the John Dewey lecture at AERA in Philadelphia on April 3, 2014. When I last spoke at AERA in 2011 in Ne
EduShyster: Who Are “Educators For Excellence”?
In recent years, the Gates Foundation has funded AstroTurf “teacher-led groups” to advocate for policies that most teachers reject. One of these groups is called Educators for Excellence. In this post, a guest blogger for EduShyster explains why he refused to join E4E. Among other things, he could not bring himself to sign the pledge: “which states that they “pledge to support using value-added
Mercedes Schneider: Who Wrote the Common Core Standards?
Mercedes Schneider has dug deep into the IRS 990 forms of the various organizations that wrote the Common Core standards and is piecing together the history of that effort. Although its advocates portray CCSS as “state-led,” that was not quite true. The creation of the CC was the work of a handful of influential individuals associated with inside-the-Beltway organizations, plus testing companies.
DEC 09
Pence Intensifies Effort to Marginalize Ritz
In a shocking affront to the democratic process and to conservative principles, Governor Mike Pence stepped up his efforts to strip away the authority of Glenda Ritz, the elected state superintendent of education. Her predecessor Tony Bennett was treated as a hero. Ritz is treated as an illegitimate outcast because she disagrees with the Governor’s radical plans to privatize public education and
Connecticut Governor Malloy: A Favorite of Corporate Reformer$
On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the three top performing states are Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. You would think that the governors and legislatures of these states would shower praise on their successful educators and schools and protect and strengthen them. But none of these states is immune from the assault on public education by the privatization movement. T
Long Island: Parents Are Key to Fixing Common Core
Michael White, the editor of the Riverhead News-Review and the Suffolk Times in Long Island, attended one of the state’s open forums about the Common Core standards and tests. He got an earful, and he reported it here. He understands the larger context behind the creation of the CCSS: While nonprofits such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and political lobbyists like Students First flood s
A Teacher Who Is Evaluated by the Scores of Students She Does Not Teach
A reader writes: “I’m a special education teacher in New Mexico and I took this year off teaching, for medical reasons. The choice was made easier by the new teacher evaluations. Since my students have significant disabilities, they can not take the state tests. 50% of my evaluation would then be based on how the regular education students, who I do not teach, scored at our school. 25% of my evalu
Disgusting: Missouri State Commissioner Pushes Secret Plan to Privatize Kansas City Schools
Joe Robertson of the Kansas City Star reported that the newspaper obtained secret emails describing an effort by State Commissioner Chris Dicastro to wipe out public education in that city. “Backed by two of the most influential foundations in Kansas City, Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro and a state-hired consultant are planning the future of Kansas City Public Schools as a slate w
Jersey Jazzman on Chris Christie’s Education Legacy
Chris Christie is a leading candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016. Jersey Jazzman here reveals what Christie has done about the high school in the state Capitol, Trenton Central High School. Listen to the students. Watch the video. The high school sends kids to Ivy League colleges, but Christie rants about “failure factories.” He never acknowledges that New Jersey is one of the nation’
Charleston, S.C., Builds a Bridge to Nowhere–in Its Schools
Surprise! The school leadership of Charleston, South Carolina, has come up with some stale ideas and branded them as “reform.” Nothing like copying what was tried and failed everywhere else! The district calls it a “new” program of teacher evaluation, pay for performance, and reconfigured salary structure BRIDGE but in fact it is the status quo demanded by the U.S. Department of Education. Every B
Momma Bears: How to Get Stinking Rich Off Education
Some very smart public school parents in Tennessee who calls themselves Momma Bears have figured out the game plan of the education industry. Here is their plain and simple 10-step plan about how to cash in on the public school marketplace and get stinking rich. These are the first three steps (read the post to learn about the other seven steps that will make you a millionaire): Times are tough,
DEC 08
Pasi Sahlberg Speaks Tuesday in Rhode Island
The great Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg will speak at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston on Tuesday evening. He is a delightful, charismatic speaker who has a deep understanding of education around the world. Don’t miss it!
Do iPads Improve Learning and Raise Test Scores?
This article was published earlier this year but remains timely. Mostly the blog reports on an article by veteran journalist Peg Tyre on the potential value of technology in the classroom. Tyre knows that the technology boom is accelerating but she offers a few cautions. Take iPads. “iPads in the classroom, too, are hardly turning out to be a panacea. Teachers in some schools use iPads to great ef
Reminder: I Will Be at P.S. 15 in Brooklyn on December 11
I will join with teachers, parents, and anyone else who wants to attend on December 11 at 5 pm at P.S. 15 in Brooklyn for a conversation about my recent book Reign of Error. No lecture, just discussion. All are welcome. P.S. 15 is located in Red Hook on Sullivan Street in Brooklyn. You are invited!
Are You a Parent Who Fights for Your Child?
Anna Shah-bomba is a parent in New York who attended a Common Core forum and was startled to be dismissed as a member of a “special interest” group by the state commissioner of education. To help other parents advocate for their children, she wrote this post:. She asks, “Are you “that parent”? She begins like this: “Advocating in a small school district presents a challenge on many fronts. Some
Laura Clawson: What About Charters for Rich White Kids?
Laura Clawson writes about charters that target a specific demographic: Affluent white kids. Two of the most celebrated charter chains are Great Hearts Academy and Basis, both located in Arizona but now opening in cities outside that state. Their key demographic is not poor black and brown students. She quotes from a story that appeared in The Texas Tribune and the New York Times: At the 16 campus
Teacher: What I Learned When I Taught at Steve Perry’s “No Excuses” School in Hartford
Ebony Murphy-Root was intrigued by what she heard on television about Steve Perry’s Capitol Prep school in Hartford, and she applied to teach there. This is her report on her year teaching in Perry’s school. She started work during the six-week summer session. And she noticed something strange: “But within that six week period, six teachers disappeared. I didn’t yet know this but such sudden dis
Public School Parent on Steve Perry and His “Miracle” School
Jonathan Pelto has recently posted several times about Steve Perry, who runs a magnet school in Hartford and boasts that he has the secret to success for all students, no matter what their background. Perry is a “no excuses” kind of guy, who sets strict rules and enforces them with a strong hand. In this post, Pelto reprints a letter from a public school parent about Perry and his methods. The par
How to Evaluate a Teacher, Really
This is a terrific article that appeared on Huffington Post by Nicholas Ferroni. He speaks truths that every teacher will understand. This is what he did this week: This week of school, like every other week, was pretty normal: I gave out about fifty dollars to various students who didn’t have lunch money; I resolved two teenage relationship issues; I comforted three girls who, for some reason, th
DEC 07
The Mandela That the Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You About
Thanks to TeacherKen for directing me to this terrific article that contains a dozen Mandela quotes that are not likely to be repeated in the mainstream media. When you read Mandela’s obituary in the corporate media, he is sanitized and turned into a benign African version of Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was also sanitized by the MSM, which liked his lofty sentiments about justice but not his stro
Maya Angelou on the Passing of Nelson Mandela
TeacherKen posted this wonderful tribute by Maya Angelou to one of the greatest men of our time or any other. Nelson Mandela exemplified courage, dignity, wisdom, and forbearance in the face of cruelty and oppression. How many people could survive 27 years of imprisonment and emerge from the ordeal free of bitterness yet full of grace? He led his people to freedom and helped to avoid what might h
Schneider Reviews Success Academy Tax Documents and Concludes: Eva Should Pay the Rent
In this post, Mercedes Schneider reviews the IRS documents for Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain and concludes that they can afford to pay the city rent. The post begins like this: Since 2006, Eva Moskowitz has been running a small charter empire that has at least $50 million in assets and the support of hedge fund millionaires. Why is it, then, that her Success Academies have never pa
Michigan: Critics Attack Letter Grading System for Schools
Critics of Michigan’s letter-grades for schools denounced the system as a Trojan horse, designed to push schools with low grades into the state-created Educational Achievement Authority. “Legislation creating a letter grading system for Michigan public schools is coming under scrutiny because it contains a provision that may speed the transfer of failing schools into the troubled Education Achiev
Yasha Levine and the L.A. iPad Fiasco: Follow the Money
Investigative reporter Yasha Levine digs into the iPad mess in Los Angeles here. Some corporations will make a lot of money, especially Apple and Pearson. And meanwhile, many Los Angeles students will be in overcrowded classrooms and will not get any arts programs because of budget cuts. This story is not going away. It just keeps getting worse. No one has explained where the money will come from
Syracuse, N.Y., Superintendents Says High-Stakes Testing Destroys Promise of Common Core
Casey Barduhn, superintendent of the Westhill Central School District, warns New York Commissioner John King that his reliance on high-stakes testing is destroying the promise of the Common Core standards. Barduhn wrote to King that he was intrigued by the standards when they were unveiled and hopeful that they would lead to creative and innovative teaching and learning. But with the advent of t
Indiana: Why the Battle between Glenda Ritz and Governor Pence Matters
Journalist Todd Smekens in Indiana blogged about the struggle by Glenda Ritz to stop Governor Mike Pence from destroying her position, to which she was elected by the people of Indiana. This is a battle for democracy, not for an individual. Smekens sees the struggle as part of a national attack on public education. He tied it to Sue Peters’ upset victory in Seattle, where the zillionaires put toge
North Carolina School Board Opposes Legislature’s Plan to Abolish Due Process
The Board of Education in New Hanover County, North Carolina, passed a resolution opposing the state legislature’s plan to offer bonuses to 25% of teachers in exchange for their abandoning their due process rights. The board–in Wilmington, North Carolina–is Republican dominated. When the resolution passed, the audience at the board meeting–many of whom were teachers, wearing red–burst into applaus