Missouri: Draft Report Calls for Dismantling of Kansas City Public School District
Reporter Garrett Haake of KSHB In Kansas City reported that State Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro and the State Board commissioned a report that calls for a radical restructuring of the Kansas City school district. “It calls for replacing the top-down district structure with a much smaller, near purely administrative entity called a Community Schools Office (CSO). The CSO would retain some f
Principal of Troubled School is a Graduate of “Leadership Academy”
The principal of PS 106 in Far Rockaway, now in the news for its lack of curriculum or books, is a graduate of New York City’s vaunted Leadership Academy. When Joel Klein took charge of the New York City schools in 2002, one of his earliest “reforms” was the creation of the Leadership Academy, a fast-track program for new principals. Originally, it was funded for three years with $75 million from
The School the Bloomberg Administration Forgot
The New York Post ran a story about a public school in NYC that sounds like a holding pen for hapless children than a school. According to the article by Susan Edelman: “Students at PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, have gotten no math or reading and writing books for the rigorous Common Core curriculum, whistleblowers say. The 234 kids get no gym or art classes. Instead, they watch movies every da
The Untold Story of the Emails That Brought Down Indiana’s Tony Bennett
Adam Wren at Indianapolis Monthly writes a compelling account of the search for the emails that embarrassed star “reformer” Tony Bennett and caused him to resign as Commissioner of Education in Florida. As you may recall, Bennett was upset by Democratic educator Glenda Ritz in the fall elections in 2012, although he spent ten times as much as she. Bennett was a superstar in the rightwing privatiza
New Rochester Mayor Pledges More Charter Schools
Upstate New York has had its share of failed charter schools. Some years back, Edison Schools had a charter school in Rochester, which was a disaster and later shuttered by its state authorizer. Not far away another charter (acquired by Imagine Schools) in Syracuse was shut down due to poor academic performance, and county bond holders were left holding the bag for the closed school. In Buffalo
Invitation: First National Conference of Network for Public Education
The Network for Public Education, formed earlier this year, will hold its first annual conference in Austin, Texas, on March 1 and 2. Please register now! NPE was created to give voice to those opposing privatization, school closings, and high-stakes testing. It demands a positive agenda for change based on love of learning, respect for educators, and dedication to the healthy development of child
Parent to NC Legislature: Stop Assaulting Our Teachers!
Deborah R. Gerhardt, a parent of school-age children in North Carolina, is upset that her children’s teachers–including their best teachers–are leaving. They are leaving because the Legislature is driving the state’s best teachers away, she says. Ten years ago, she and her family moved to North Carolina because of its reputation for investing in its public schools. But that reputation has been squ
Mike Petrilli: 2014 as the Year of “Universal Proficiency”
Mike Petrilli of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute in D.C. is the member of the “reform” movement for whom I continue to hold out hope. Mike is intelligent–as are other members of the “reform” movement–but unlike most of the others, he is known to question his assumptions from time to time. He occasionally challenges himself and takes a tiny step away from the other advocates of privati
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 1-12-14 Diane Ravitch's blog A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: New Volume About Teacher Evaluation and High-Stakes Testing Now AvailableA group of expert researchers have published a new collection of articles about teacher evaluation and high-stakes testing and their consequences. The collection appears online in the Teachers College Record. It is called “High-Stakes Teacher Evaluation: High