Reader: Who Wrote the Infamous TIME Cover Story About Michelle Rhee?
A reader whoe nom de plume is Democracy posted this comment: “Time magazine infamously posted Michelle Rhee on its cover, with a broom, with the title, “How To Fix America’s Schools.” The subtitle of that cover story stated that Rhee was engaged in a “battle against bad teachers” that could “transform public education.” The cover story was written by the oh-so-talented (wink) Amanda Ripley, who
Jeannie Kaplan: In Denver, Some Charters Are More Equal Than Others
Jeannie Kaplan, who was an elected member of the Denver school board, has done an amazing job of investigative research on the money that Denver lavishes on two charter chains: Denver School of Science and Technology and Strive. These two chains get the lion’s share of charter funding. Their charters get the best space; other charters are poor relations. These two chains together have 20 of Denve
The Failure of Test and Test and Test Some More
This teacher expresses frustration with the policymakers’ obsession with testing, thinking of it as a form of instruction and a measure of instruction, and as a measure of teacher quality and school quality. In New York, for example, State Commissiomer Zjohn King recently a bounced that he would release more questions and more results earlier. But he steadfastly refuses to tell teachers how studen
Who Is “Weeding” Thousands of Books in Racine School Libraries?
This is a very disturbing story. Approximately 8,000 books were removed from the shelves of Mitchell Middle School in Racine, Wisconsin. Initially, librarians expected that 2,000 books would be “weeded,” but the number grew to 8,000, including “books on the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Bible, the Koran, and Beowulf. In the end, over 8000 books were removed from library shelves.” The Racine Education
Peter Greene: David Coleman Is Superman!
Peter Green watched a 30-minute interview of David Coleman at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The big news from the interview is that Coleman doesn’t demonized critics of the CCSS and thinks it’s a big mistake to treat all critics as crazies and/or liars. But what fascinates Green is Coleman’s self-regard, and also his strange idea that it is up to certain special people to fix our institutions. Cole
Gary Rubinstein on Tennessee’s Pathetic Lies About Its Underachievement District
Poor Tennessee! It is locked in the embrace of fake reformers who promise miracles, and a far-right legislature that wants to believe them. Worse, having won a Race to the Top grant, it has to produce miracles, even if they are fabricated out of whole cloth. One of the alleged miracles-to-be is the Achievement School District, led by Chris Barbic of TFA and YES Prep. Barbic came to Tennessee to t
LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 7-31-14 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Jersey Jazzman: What Does Campbell Brown Want?Jersey Jazzman writes that we know what Campbell Brown is against: bad teachers. She says teachers should have due process protections. So does Arne Duncan. Unions would agree with them that termination hearings should not be expensive and endless. So what does she want? Jersey Jazzman