Jeanne Kaplan: How Val Flores Beat the Reformers in Colorado
Veteran educator Val Flores pulled off a stunning upset when she beat a well-funded candidate for a seat on the state board. No one thought it could happen. Val spent $20,000. Her opponent spent $135,000. Val won by a margin of 59-41. Jeanne Kaplan, a former member of the Denver school board, explains what happened.
Detroit Free Press: When Charter School Board Members Are Powerless
In its continuing investigation of charter schools in Michigan, the Detroit Free Press published a stunning article about the powerlessness of charter board members. Jennifer Dixon writes: As president of the board of the Detroit Enterprise Academy, Sandra Clark-Hinton was pressing hard for detailed financial records from a representative of the charter school’s management company. His respo
Was John Covington Fired from Michigan EAA?
Jack Lessenberry, columnist for the MetroTimes in Michigan, says that John Covington was fired from his $325,000 a year job running Governor Rick Snyder’s Education Achievement Authority. EAA was created to run Detroit’s lowest performing schools, and it has been a huge disappointment, although Governor Snyder won’t say so and wants to expand it. What went wrong? Almost everything. Students and t
Susan J. Demas: Will Michigan’s Governor Snyder Admit He Was Wrong About Free Market Schools?
Susan J. Demas, publisher and editor of Inside Michigan Politics, writes that the exposé of charter school scandals by the Detroit Free Press should cause Governor Snyder and his allies to admit they were wrong about schools run without supervision by entrepreneurs. She writes: “Education should be about children, not adults. “For the past three years, Republicans wielded this powerful soundbite
Tom Scarice: The Greatest Crime Against Education, Educators, and Students Is….
Tom Scarice, superintendent of schools in Madison, Connecticut, here speaks out and names the criminal corruption of education into a test-taking industry that has no goal other than test scores. He knows that as the stakes go higher, people succumb to the pressure to teach to the test or even to cheat. Campbell’s Law is relentless. The same things happen in other fields, when the goal of profit b
Florida: Weak Charter Laws Permit Self-Dealing, Waste of Public Dollars
The Sun-Sentinel in Florida published a scathing series about charter school scandals, made possible by lax laws and almost no supervision. “Unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down. “A recent spate of charter-school closings illustrates weaknesses in state law: virtually anyone can open
EduShyster: Barbara Madeloni, New President of MTA, Says It is Time to Fight Back
EduShyster interviews Barbara Madeloni, the recently elected president of the 110,000 member Massachusetts Teachers Association, and she warns that we either fight for public education or we will lose it. A former high school teacher, Madeloni was teaching teachers at the University of Massachusetts-Amerst, and she and her students refused to participate in edTPA. As she puts it, “The students wi
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 6-26-14 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: John Thompson and Peter Greene Debate the Gates MoratoriumWhen the Gates Foundation proclaimed the need for a two-year moratorium on the stakes associated with Common Core testing, it created a lot of buzz. Was it a retreat? Was it a trick? We’re they trying to lull critics with a two-year delay? We’re they bowing to the outrage of