Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog:
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk
Schooling in the Ownership Society
Jay Travis is the real deal.
At Travis fundraiser last night. I got to meet 26th Dist Rep. candidate Jay Travis at a campaign fundraiser for her last night. I came away thinking, she's the real deal. She previously worked as the executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), which has been in the forefront of the battle to save public education in Chicago. She's solid in her defense of retirees pensi
FEB 06
The Whitenizing of Detroit
I'm heading to Detroit next week for the annual meeting of the North Dakota Study Group. I used to attend every year for at least part of the meeting. But since it was moved from near Chicago to Motown, I haven't been able to make the trip. But withdrawal has been tough. I miss hanging out with some of the best progressive educators and public intellectuals in the country who are doing some of the
FEB 05
Newark at the boiling point. Cami Anderson is their Michelle Rhee
Mayoral candidate Ras Baraka, standing outside Weequahic High School in Newark, attacks Cami Anderson's "One Newark" plan. (Frances Micklow/The Star-Ledger)Cami Anderson is Newark's Michelle Rhee. She's brought the city to the boiling point with the unveiling of her “One Newark” plan for school closings and charter school proliferation in much the same way as Rhee did in D.C., before be
FEB 04
False Consciousness
Hilarious Chris ChristieWas he auditing my philosophy class about multiple perspectives? Or maybe studying Freudian psychology? Now he sort of admits knowing about the GWB debacle as it was happening. But he says, it hadn't yet entered his "consciousness.""The first time that this really came into my consciousness, as an issue" was when an e-mail from Port Authority Executive D
FEB 03
Weekend Quotables
Harry Belafonte“I think artists have a platform, they have a power, the gift – and by using that gift and that power and putting it the service of those who are being ground out by inequity and systems that are unjust, we begin to put a light and a new dynamic into what is going on with the poor and what is going on with the racially oppressed, sexually abused,” Belafonte told Harris-Perry. “And b
Billionaire corporate school reformer Mandel, buys a 'pipeline' to CT Governor
Stephen Mandel, Jr. Net Worth $1.8 B (Forbes)If you're a billionaire hedge-funder and corporate school reformer like Stephen Mandel, and you want a direct line to the governor's office, you buy one. Mandel, the founder of the Lone Pine Capital hedge fund in Greenwich, is one of the biggest financial backers of CT Gov. Malloy, having spentwho spent over $500,000 supporting the governors agenda. He'
FEB 05
How the early small schools movement was 'reformed' to death
If you're interested in the history of the early Small Schools Movement and how it was, to quote Michelle Fine, "coopted and commodified", by corporate school reformers and the power philanthropists, get a copy of Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Education Reform (edited by Maria Hantzopoulos, Alia R. Tyner).CUNY Prof Michelle Fine, one of the movement'
FEB 04
Bruce Rauner's charter school, a pawn in his political game
Rauner boasts that he started a charter school.Billionaire candidate for governor, Bruce Rauner and charter operator Mike Milkie, are trying to play Rauner Charter School for all its worth. Rauner's using it for political reasons, Milkie, it seems, for personal gain.The school's teachers and students have become pawns in Rauner's campaign publicity game. Until today that is, when an expose in the
FEB 01
Suit: D.C. charter oprators dumping 350 special needs kids after diverting funds to their for-profit company
Options former chief executive Donna MontgomeryIn D.C., Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan filed a civil lawsuit against several Options Charter School managers and a former board member accusing them of diverting millions of dollars from the school to two for-profit companies they owned and operated.He's trying to stop the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) from closing of the school, which would
JAN 26
California corporate 'reformers' file suit so they can fire teachers without due process
WelchStudents Matter, a front group for corporate-style school "reformers" has filed suit in Los Angeles in an attempt to undercut statewide collective-bargaining agreements and to make it easier to fire teachers without due process. The L.A. Times describes Students Matter as a group founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur David F. Welch, a research scientist who went on to co-found Infi
Why was Pearson invited?
Mixed in with the college presidents and philanthropists at the WH Ed Summitt were a handful of business leaders, including executives from Chegg, iMentor, Khan Academy, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Pearson. Other businesses, like the textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Education, said they were aware of the event but did not attend. The madfloridian's Journal raises good questions about why P