NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
Malloy administration recruits “Dream Team” to sell Common Core to Connecticut teachers | Wait What?
Initially Malloy and his team wanted to run a $1 million Connecticut taxpayer funded pro-Common Core advertising campaign. But when a political firestorm forced them to back down, the Malloy team came up with a different publicly funded campaign to sell the Common Core. This time the brainchild is from an out-of-state company hired by ...read more
Naison: Obama’s Scorched Earth Policy is Destroying Public Education in the Cities | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Perhaps someday historians will figure out how the Obama administration pulled the wool over the eyes of so many people about its plans for urban schools. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama named Professor Linda Darling-Hammond as his senior education advisor. She went on national television to describe the progressive policies he would pursue if ...read more
Two Americas: George W. Bush and Neil deGrasse Tyson | the becoming radical
“This country was founded on the idea of concentrating wealth in the hands of a few white men,” Mychal Denzel Smith asserts in “We Built This Country on Inequality,” adding, “That that persists today isn’t a flaw in the design. Everything is working as the founders intended.” Smith’s claim has two parts that challenge the ...read more
Representative Raul Grijalva Warns that Obama’s Market-Based Policies Endanger Public Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He sees right through the Obama education policy and recognizes that it is a continuation of George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind. In this astonishingly candid interview with Josh Eidelson in Salon, Rep. Grijalva lacerates Race to the Top, high-stakes testing, ...read more
Clergy warn Christie: Your Newark school reform is a mess | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (Eduardo Munoz/REUTERS) Dozens of members of the clergy in Newark have warned Gov. Chris Christie (R) that school reform efforts by his appointed superintendent are causing so much controversy and “unnecessary instability” in the city that they are “concerned about the level of public anger we see ...read more
L.A. Times: Cheating Rampant on High-Stakes Exams in India | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Los Angeles Times tells us what we should already know: The higher the stakes on exams, the more bad consequences will follow. In India, there are crucial exams, and cheating is a persistent problem. Ingenious students us their ingenuity not to answer the questions, but to find ways to get the right answer, either ...read more
Charter Schools: The New Battle of Trenton | Jersey Jazzman
So you guys have all seen this: On Christmas Day, 1775, George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River, starting at what is known now as Upper Makefield, PA. The general led his forces south along the banks of the river, eventually sneaking up on the Hessians, the German mercenary troops of the British ...read more
Racism Without Racists: The School Resegregation Edition | The Jose Vilson
Today, ProPublica released a special report on their website dedicated to the resegregation of America’s public schools. With the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision on May 17th approaching, ProPublica has focused this special section on Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where three separate and equally devastating stories will be told as case studies ...read more
Arne Duncan dismisses critics: ‘Lots of drama, lots of noise’ | The Answer Sheet
There he goes again. Education Secretary Arne Duncan went to New York recently and introduced state Education Commissioner John King at a function at New York University, calling him “a remarkable leader” and “as smart and as thoughtful as anyone working in this space.” As for the growing number of critics of King’s education reforms, Duncan ...read more
Don’t Back Down | EduShyster
Dear Teach for America: As an alum of your program, I like to keep apprised of your goings-on. Though we may have our differences, I always try to appreciate your bolder efforts. So I’m thrilled to see you taking a valiant stand in Newark, where the district is preparing to can over a thousand teachers without regard to seniority ...read more
APR 17
“A self-fulfilling conflict of interest”: Charter schools, testing mania, and Arne Duncan | Salon.com
Obama’s education secretary is “a market-based person,” his education policy manifests a “market-based philosophy,” and “we continue to starve public schools,” the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus charged in an interview Wednesday afternoon. The privatization of education “began as driven by ideology, but now [it’s] getting momentum because of the financial aspects,” Rep. Raul ...r
Colorado Teacher: Is This Good for Kids? Why I Resigned | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Colorado has one of the most punitive teacher evaluation systems in the nation, passed in 2010. It was written by State Senator Michael Johnston, ex-TFA. Contrary to the conclusions of the American Statistical Association, the American Educational Research Association, and eminent researchers such as Linda Darling-Hammond and Edward Haertel of Stanford, Colorado’s SB 191 bases ...read more
Opinion: What’s Good for Our Teachers Is Good for Our Students | NJ Spotlight
MARK WEBER | APRIL 16, 2014 Attempts to deprecate or demonize teachers when they stand up for themselves are bad for our kids’ education Why is teaching the only profession in New Jersey (and the nation) where employees are criticized for standing up for themselves? In Newark, the teachers union has decried a plan, proposed ...read more
Arne Debunkin’ | Gary Rubinstein’s Blog
by Gary Rubinstein A little over three years ago, I first encountered Arne Duncan when he spoke at the TFA 20 year alumni summit and described the miracle school Urban Prep. He implied that this school had a 100% graduation rate and a 100% college acceptance rate, which inspired me to investigate this clam leading ...read more
Even the strongest relationships sour | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 17 at 4:00 am Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, and John White, Louisiana’s education commissioner, were once a great school reform pair — seemingly inseparable. Times have changed. In early 2011, Jindal tapped White, then the superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans, to become education chief in Louisiana ...read more
Pearson’s Errors Matter | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The American public would be alarmed if they knew how often standardized tests are inaccurate. As a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, I saw questions whose wording was confusing. I saw questions that had more than one right answer. I even saw questions with no right answer. Sometimes the tests are scored incorrectly, ...read more
CT Makes New Strides in Grittology | CURMUDGUCATION
Sandwiched in the midst of a puff piece about Connecticut’s new elite cadre of Common Core teacher shills is this important paragraph: Getting on the list was competitive. According to a news release from the Department of Education, teachers “were chosen through a competitive statewide application on the basis of their content knowledge, grit, and ...read more
Corporate Education Reform Industry group starts radio campaign in support of new charter schools | Wait What?
Surprise, surprise… An out-of-State charter school advocacy group has started an advertising campaign to support the Malloy administration’s decision to give Steve Perry his own privately run, but taxpayer funded, charter school in Bridgeport. According to a reports from the CT Mirror and Hartford Courant, Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., a charter school advocacy group based ...read more
An Open Letter to Teach for America Recruits | Alternet
Dear New TFA Recruits, Around the country, hundreds of college seniors and a handful of career changers are receiving letters of acceptance into Teach For America (TFA). Congratulations on being accepted into this prestigious program. You clearly have demonstrated intelligence, passion, and leadership to make it this far. And now I am asking you to ...read more
Jason Stanford: Who Is Leading the Civil Rights Movement Today? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Jason Stanford attended a conference in Austin to mark the 50th anniversary of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And don’t you know, the people who were responsible for No Child Left Behind think they acted in the tradition of civil rights leaders. He writes: “At the Civil Rights Summit celebrating the Civil ...read more
At Shanker: Are Americans (and Texans) as Stupid as the Media Tells Us We Are? | Cloaking Inequity
The media onslaught letting Americans know that they are dunces has gone on for decades. How stupid are we? You might be surprised that the news about our public education system in the United States is not actually as bad as you have been led to believe… Last week I travelled to Washington D.C. to participate ...read more
How Corporate Interests Beat NYC’s Progressive Mayor and How He Can Recover | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This article was written by an independent education researcher who requests anonymity. It is unfortunate that the politics of education have become so intermingled with powerful forces that researchers remain silent or hide their identities to escape retribution. In this case, everything in this article is carefully documented. Lessons Learned: How the Nation’s Most Powerful ...read more
APR 16
What is the SAT good for? | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 16 at 11:00 am The College Board released new details on Wednesday about how the SAT will change in early 2016. My colleague Nick Anderson wrote about the changes in this story, explaining how the test, once billed as evaluating “aptitude,” is now being marketed as a measure of high school achievement. ...read more
Why you can’t compare simple achievement gaps across states! So don’t! | School Finance 101
Consider this post the second in my series of basic data issues in education policy analysis. This is a topic on which I’ve written numerous previous posts. In most previous posts I’ve focused specifically on the issue of problems with poverty measurement across contexts and how those problems lead to common misinterpretations of achievement gaps. ...read more
Back to the Lab Again | EduShyster
Reader: you are almost certainly aware that our Secretary of Education, Mr. Arne Duncan, has many excellent ideas regarding how to enhance the excellence of our failed and failing public schools. But did you ever pause to ask yourself *from whence did those ideas come?* It’s field trip time and our destination is none other ...read more
Elizabeth Warren and I | Diane Ravitch’s blog
I have recently read that Senator Elizabeth Warren is a supporter of school vouchers. This made people who despise public schools, like certain hedge fund managers, tingle with joy. At last, a progressive who is as contemptuous of public education as they are! At last, someone who will support their efforts to dismantle our nation’s ...read more
John Thompson: Gallup Poll Finds Majority of Teachers “Not Engaged” | Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue
Guest post by John Thompson. Gallup has produced decades of research on the characteristics of high-performing educators, students and schools. Gallup explains that its studies have produced “unparalleled expertise on the ‘human’ elements” of school improvement, but “these elements are often overlooked in the effort to ‘fix’ America’s education system.” Gallup’s latest study found ...read more
Students rally for bill to limit suspensions and expulsion, ban discipline fines | catalyst-chicago.org
Students from Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) rallied in the Loop Wednesday to build support for student-drafted legislation that would eliminate monetary fines imposed for disciplinary reasons in schools, as well as limit out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. The proposed bill, SB3004, is now pending in the state Senate. The crowd of students and ...read more
Pay-for-Performance for CEOs and Teachers | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison earns $37,692 an hour. No, that is not a typo or misplaced comma. Ellison’ annual salary ran $78.4 million, much of it in stock option awards. His salary was based on the annual performance of the company’s stock. Oracle’s Board of Directors set the pay scale (Ellison owns one-fourth of the ...read more
Dockery: Senate Should Let Voucher Expansion Die | Scathing Purple Musings
Writing in her hometown newspaper, the Lakeland Ledger, former republican state senator Paula Dockery makes the clear case why voucher expansion cannot be intellectually be defended: Opponents of voucher expansion make a valid argument. Students attending private schools are not subjected to high-stakes tests. The schools are not required to hire certified teachers or to comply ...read more
New study on inequity and teacher “effectiveness” misses the mark | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
Yes, there’s lots of evidence to show poor kids and children of color are generally being taught by teachers with less experience (or no experience) which puts them at a severe disadvantage. But the Huffington headline calling schools “racist” is one-sided and misleading. Credit instead should go to Race To The Top. To TFA. To ...read more
Even more students lose as the “cost” of the Common Core Testing grows | Wait What?
The Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Field Test of a test means more testing and less learning. The Common Core test will cost Connecticut’s students and teachers hundreds of hours of lost instructional time. The Common Core test will cost schools and taxpayers tens of millions in computer and internet upgrades so that students can ...read more
How Many Tests Must a High School Teacher in New Jersey Give? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In this post, New Jersey high school teacher Dan Ferat reflects on how many tests he is now required to give to his students, as compared to ten years ago. Here is a sample, read it all: So, in only ten years, we have gone from students taking five exams per year (six ...read more
Where are the 2013 Technical Reports?: A Call for Transparency at John King’s NYSED | Critical Classrooms, Critical Kids
On April 14, 2014, sociologist Aaron M. Pallas posted an illuminating report on the lack of transparency at the New York State Education Department (NYSED) with regards to its controversial standardized testing program. It’s posted on his blog A Sociological Eye on Education. I was struck by Pallas’ mention of the missing technical reports of the 2013 NYS Common Core assessments that ...read mo
Student Loan Borrowers’ Costs To Jump As Education Department Reaps Huge Profit | Huffington Post
The U.S. Department of Education is forecast to generate $127 billion in profit over the next decade from lending to college students and their families, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Beginning in the 2015-16 academic year, students and their families are forecast to pay more to borrow from the department than they did prior ...read more
How Many Hours Should It Take to Test Children in Grades 3-8 in Basic Skills? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Principals, teachers, and parents in New York state complained that the Common Core tests for grades 3-8 were too long. The tests for math and reading together take about 7 hours. Commissioner John King responded in a recent speech at New York University that students were spending “less than 1%” of the school year, which ...read more
APR 15
Jindal to Dump PARCC? | deutsch29
An April 14, 2014, nola.com article has Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal publicly saying he is “willing” to leave the Partnership for Assessment of College and Careers (PARCC)– and even the Common Core State Standards (CCSS): Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he is willing to withdraw Louisiana from a consortium of states developing the assessment associated with the Common Core academic standards ...read
The Wallstreet Journal also Captures the ASA’s Recent Position Statement on VAMs | VAMboozled
Yesterday I released the second of two posts about the recent release of the American Statistical Association’s Position Statement about using VAMs for educational assessment and accountability. Below is a third post, as again warranted, given the considerable significance of this statement. This one comes from The Washington Post – The Answer Sheet by Valerie ...read more
Parents OPPOSE HR 10, the “Success and Opportunity Through Charter Schools” bill | Seattle Education
There is a bill titled “Success and Opportunity Through Charter Schools”, referred to as HR 10, to rewrite federal charter law that has strong backing by the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s Republican majority and is expected to easily pass out of the committee. The bill will be voted on in the House after the mid-April recess. The bill is basically ...read more
Testing resistance movement exploding around country | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 15 at 4:00 am The testing resistance movement is growing rapidly around the country and parents are opting out their children from high-stakes standardized tests in most states. What do test reformers want to accomplish? Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, explains in this post. FairTest, or the National Center for ...read more
Matt Taibbi and David Sirota: Why Is Your Pension in Jeopardy? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
We hear the same refrain across the nation: public sector pensions are destroying our economy. The modest pensions paid to teachers, police officers, firefighters, and social workers are a threat to our future. via Matt Taibbi and David Sirota: Why Is Your Pension in Jeopardy? | Diane Ravitch’s blog.
What We Lose When We Rip the Heart Out of Arts Education | Alternet
April 15, 2014 | “No, no. You’ve got something the test and machines will never be able to measure: you’re artistic. That’s one of the tragedies of our times, that no machine has ever been built that can recognize that quality, appreciate it, foster it, sympathize with it.” —Paul Proteus to his wife Anita in ...read more
Matthew Di Carlo Disagrees with Michelle Rhee on Testing | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A while back, Michelle Rhee had an article published under her name in the Washington Post criticizing parents who opt thir children out of state testing. Her main reason seemed to be that parents won’t know whether he school is doing a good job unless they see standardized test scores. Matt Di Carlo, no fan ...read more
APR 14
Jason France announces his candidacy for the Louisiana Board of Education | Crazy Crawfish’s Blog
2015 BESE election to have a fresh face: Jason France, a.k.a. “The Crazy Crawfish” seeks to remove Chas Roemer as he announces his candidacy for the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) district 6. Jason France, a father of two East Baton Rouge public school children in BESE district 6, former Louisiana ...read more
New Study Finds That Early Childhood Care and Education Has Lasting Effects | Diane Ravitch’s blog
This article reports on a long-term study of the lasting effects of early childhood education. The article is misleadingly titled “Project to Improve Poor Children’s Intellect Led to Better Health, Data Shows.” But the study involved far more than improving young children’s intellect. “In 1972, researchers in North Carolina started following two ...read more
Anthony Cody: Teachers, It is Time to Wake Up and Fight Back Against the Machine | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Anthony Cody here describes teachers as “reluctant warriors,” as men and women who chose a profession because they wanted to teach, not to engage in political battles over their basic rights as professionals. The profession is under attack, as everyone now knows. Pensions are under attack. The right to due process is under attack. ...read more
Edupreneuring Hard Rock Instructional Boondogglery | CURMUDGUCATION
Are you too non-rich to attend Camp Philos, the philosophical retreat for educational thought leaders at Lake Placid this summer? Then 2014 Rock the Core! may be for you! If nothing else– it provides an object lesson in edtrepreneurship in action. Rock the Core will take place June 9-11 at the Hard Rock Casino in ...read more
American Teachers Feel Really Stressed, And It’s Probably Affecting Students | The Huffington Post
American teachers feel stressed out and insignificant, and it may be impacting students’ educations. Gallup’s State Of America’s Schools Report, released Wednesday, says nearly 70 percent of K – 12 teachers surveyed in a 2012 poll do not feel engaged in their work. The study said they are likely to spread their negative attitudes to ...read more
APR 13
How One Organization Is Resisting Corporate Education By Getting More People to Opt Out of High-Stakes Tests | Alternet
Late last month, over 100 teachers, students, and parents from across the country gathered in Denver for the United Opt Out National Spring Action, a conference aimed at growing the resistance to corporate education reform and high stakes standardized testing across the nation. Throughout the weekend, the education activists brainstormed and planned in area-focused work ...read more
Failed Los Angeles ‘Education Entrepreneur’ Tries To Make A New Start In New Jersey | Mother Crusader
The latest round of charter applications have been announced, and as NJ Spotlight’s John Mooney points out, New Jersey charters have become entirely an urban affair, with an ever increasing number of state and national Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) throwing their hats into the ring. It hasn’t escaped Mooney that this is a whole lot ...read more
Billionaires Rule! How Governor Cuomo and Hedge Fund Managers Protected Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
I am late posting this article because it appeared about the time I started dealing with health issues (a bad fall that took out the ACL in my left knee). It deserves wide reading because it is an accurate portrait of the money and power behind the charter school movement. I commend the writers, Javier ...read more
Rick Scott’s 2012 FCAT Rankings Show Poverty Matters | Scathing Purple Musings
Ocala Star-Banner editor Brad Rogers remind his readers of Rick Scott’s ill-fated 2012 release of FCAT rankings by district, and he’s not attempted that stunt since. Scathing Purple Musings speculated that the decision was a strictly political one and a response to California governor Jerry Brown’s turn-down on high-stakes tests. So why hasn’t Scott released ...read more
American Statistical Association (ASA) Position Statement on VAMs | VAMboozled
Inside my most recent post, about the Top 14 research-based articles about VAMs, there was a great research-based statement that was released just last week by the American Statistical Association (ASA), titled the “ASA Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment.” It is short, accessible, easy to understand, and hard to dispute, so I wanted ...read more
From One Reluctant Warrior to Another | CURMUDGUCATION
Anthony Cody posted A Call to Battle for reluctant Warriors earlier this week, and it got me to really thinking about my own reluctant warrior status, and what I would say to someone else just entering the fray. I’m not a fighter. On those personality tests that measure such things, I usually emerge as a ...read more
Statisticians slam popular teacher evaluation method | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS April 13 at 1:12 pm You can be certain that members of the American Statistical Association, the largest organization in the United States representing statisticians and related professionals, know a thing or two about data and measurement. That makes the statement that the association just issued very important for school reform. The ASA ...read more
Only a Test Question | EduShyster
By Sarah Lahm In a shocking display of misplaced priorities and poor judgment, a teacher in [INSERT NAME OF CITY OR TOWN HERE] made an irreparable error this week. Instead of *teaching to the test,* as she had been subtly yet repeatedly instructed to do, this teacher committed the unforgivable sin of teaching her students ...read more
Testing Boycott in Chicago |Rethinking Schools Online
Teachers at two Chicago schools—Maria Saucedo Elementary Scholastic Academy and Thomas Drummond Elementary (Drummond Montessori)—voted to refuse to distribute the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) to their students in the beginning of March. At Saucedo alone, more than 350 parents turned in opt-out forms for their children. As Saucedo special education teacher Sarah Chambers told ...read
APR 12
BREAKING NEWS: American Statistical Association Issues Caution on Use of VAM | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The central feature of the Obama administration’s $5 billion “Race to the Top” program was sharply deconstructed and refuted last week by the American Statistical Association, one of the nation’s leading scholarly organizations. Spurred on by the administration’s combination of federal cash and mandates, most states are now using student test scores to rank and ...read more
How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 5): Racing to the Past | Yong Zhao – Education in the Age of Globalization
How Does PISA Put the World at Risk: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would suggest that PISA is a secrete plan of Western powers to derail China’s education reforms. China has been working hard to introduce significant reforms since the 1990s to overcome the ...read more
Exiting the Common Core Memorandum of Understanding | deutsch29
In October 2013, I wrote a post examining the details of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) memorandum of understanding (MOU), the agreement that state governors and state education superintendents signed with the US Department of Education (USDOE) in which “states” agreed to be “state led” in developing “common standards” according to the criteria set forth in ...read more
Florida Teacher Donates $400 Bonus to NPE to Fight VAM and Ither Failed Reforms! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Kim Cook, a first-grade teacher in Florida, received a bonus of $400. She donated it to the Network for Public Education to fight the failed ideas of corporate reform, which prevail in her state. She is the second teacher to donate their bonus to NPE to fight fake reforms that demean teachers and distort education. ...read more
#AskArne- Student Data & Test Edition | CURMUDGUCATION
Yes, dear readers, the Department of Education continues to crank out youtube videos in which Arne Duncan is fake-interviewed about an educational issue. The newest clip presents a Teach to Lead update, a shady tale of data privacy, and some huge whoppers about the testing going on. I have included the link, but it’s really ...read more
Michigan: For-Profit Charter District Can’t Make Payroll | Diane Ravitch’s blog
A few years ago, Michigan governor Rick Snyder decided that the best way to fix the financial problems of districts in deficit was to put them under the control of an emergency manager to straighten out their finances. Some districts, however, are so poor that they don’t have enough money to educate their children. It ...read more
What does Jeb Bush call public schools? (Hint: not ‘public schools’) | The Answer Sheet
BY VALERIE STRAUSS Jeb Bush, as much as anybody, is the pioneer of corporate-influenced school reform. When he was governor of Florida from 1999-2007, he introduced many of the changes in education policy that have become common across the country — including high-stakes standardized testing — and since then he has been a leading voice ...read more
Corporate Education Reform Industry pours money into Malloy campaign operation | Wait What?
Governor Dannel “Dan” Malloy is the most anti-teacher, anti-public education Democratic governor in the nation…And to see how appreciative the corporate education reform industry is, one need only look at Malloy’s campaign fundraising program which has already raised more than $100,000 from the anti-public education industry. As a participant in Connecticut’s public financing system, candidate ...
Commissioner John King’s Message to New York: I Won’t Back Down | Diane Ravitch’s blog
State Commissioner John King, with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan by his side, spoke this morning at New York University and sent a message to New York’s parents and educators: We are on the right track and we won’t back down! On the same day he spoke, elementary school principal Elizabeth Phillips published an op-ed ...read more
What? Is Duncan really bailing out on Common Core? | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
I believe the Common Core State Standards may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.” — Arne Duncan, June 25, 2013 “I’m just a big proponent of high standards. Whether they’re common or not is sort of secondary.” — Arne Duncan, April ...read more
BREAKING: Poll Shows Floridians Oppose Vouchers | Scathing Purple Musings
From Allison Nielson for Sunshine State News: Vouchers continue to be a controversial issue in the Sunshine State, with a new poll showing more than half of voters are opposed to providing scholarships to low-income students to attend nonpublic or private schools. The Voter Survey Service, commissioned by Sunshine State News, found 55 percent of ...read more
What is an Ethical Charter School? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The blog known as “Better Living Through Mathematics” ponders the criteria of an ethical charter school. That would be a school that doesn’t kick other kids out of their school. And a school that enrolled the same proportion of students with disabilities and English learners as neighborhood public schools. That would be a school that ...read more
Robert Shepherd: The Remarkable But True Tale of the Birth of Common Core | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Robert Shepherd, a frequent commenter on the blog, is an experienced veteran in the world of education publishing, having developed curriculum, textbooks, and assessments. He writes: The New York legislature just voted to dump inBloom. But Diane Ravitch’s first post about that subjected noted, wisely, that inBloom was dead “for Now.” ...read more
NYC Chancellor Carmen Farina Brings Expertise and Good Sense to 1.1 Million Student District | janresseger
Carmen Farina, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recently appointed chancellor for the New York City Public Schools, has been on the job only since January. She is, however, a lifetime educator, teacher, principal, and former district administrator who came out of retirement to serve. This week we have begun to observe pivots from the school policies ...read more
Lubienski Refutes Walmart-funded Voucher Advocates | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Last year, Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski published a book called “The Public School Advantage,” which shows through careful scholarly research that public schools have inherent advantages over private schools, especially p charter schools and voucher schools. In doing so, they stirred up a hornet’s nest. In this post, Chris Lubienski responds to Patrick ...read more
Understand your data & use it wisely! Tips for avoiding stupid mistakes with publicly available NJ data | School Finance 101
My next few blog posts will return to a common theme on this blog – appropriate use of publicly available data sources. I figure it’s time to put some positive, instructive stuff out there. Some guidance for more casual users (and more reckless ones) of public data sources and for those must making their way ...read more