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How Microsoft will make money from Common Core (despite what Bill Gates said)
Microsoft founder Bill Gates got somewhat indignant when my Post colleague Lyndsey Layton asked him in an interview this past spring about concerns of some opponents of the Common Core State Standards that his important support for the initiative has been driven by business interests. The interview was part of the extensive reporting Layton did […]
JUL 10
What libraries need from key U.S. technology program
I’ve published two posts this week about the federal “E-Rate” program — which offers discounts to schools and libraries for Internet access and telecommunications — and a modernization plan that the Federal Communications Commission will take up at its meeting Friday. The first post urged the FCC to approve the plan as a first step […]
What 4 teachers told Obama over lunch
President Obama sat down this week for lunch at the White House with Education Secretary Arne Duncan and four teachers to talk about education, teaching and school reform. What the teachers said to Obama is explained in the following post by Justin Minkel, the 2007 Arkansas Teacher of the Year, a board member of the […]
JUL 09
Will the FCC ignore educators in modernizing key U.S. technology program?
This post is a rebuttal to one that I published a few days ago about the federal “E-Rate” program — which offers discounts for schools and libraries to get Internet access and telecommunications — under the headline “A watershed moment for technology in education.” The earlier piece was co-written by Julius Genachowski, managing director of […]
JUL 08
Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today
The Centers for Disease Control tells us that in recent years there has been a jump in the percentage of young people diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD: 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and to 11 percent in 2011. The reasons for the rise are multiple, […]
Largest U.S. teachers union calls for Education Secretary Duncan to resign
Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s relations with teachers unions just got more difficult. Delegates of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, voted at their annual convention to call on Duncan to resign after similar efforts had failed in previous years. And the NEA is about to get a new president, Lily Eskelsen García, […]
JUL 07
How college remediation rates are distorted — and why
Are a large percentage of high school graduates so unprepared for college when they get there that they have to take remedial courses to catch up? School reformers like to say so, and throw out big percentages of students who are said to need remediation. But where do these figures come from, and are they […]
A watershed moment for technology in education
It is more than likely that many of you don’t know much, if anything, about the “E-Rate,” which is formally the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund administered under the auspices of the Federal Communications Commission. The E-Rate offers discounts for schools and libraries to get Internet access and telecommunications. This week, the […]
JUL 06
Departing NEA president blasts ‘incredible onslaught of corporate reformers’ — including Michelle Rhee
National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel delivered his final keynote speech at the 2014 Representative Assembly of the nation’s largest teachers union, blasting Michelle Rhee and other corporate school reformers, and urging the organization’s more than 3 million members to work to change the course of education. “Proceed until apprehended!” he urged. Van Roekel,who […]
JUL 05
Why many Democrats have turned against teachers unions
For years now it’s been clear that Democrats have splintered over the issue of corporate school reform. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have been leaders of the movement to transform public schools through standardized-test-based “accountability” and the expansion of charter schools, with other Democrats arguing that these reform measures are not effective ways […]