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Long Shadow Report: Strong Schools Require Strong Communities
By Paul Horton. An important new study, The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood by Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, and Linda Olson, casts doubt on the current policy push to starve neighborhood public schools and fund charter schools that are not connected to supportive communities. The 2014 Russell Sage Foundation study emphasizes that it doe
Rebel-lion by Columbine Rebels Brings Student Walk-Outs to South Jeffco
By Paula Noonan. The Rebels — students from Columbine High School — headed to adjacent Clement Park at 10:30am yesterday to protest the Jefferson County (Jeffco), Colorado, school board’s anti-Advanced Placement/US History resolution. The Rebels, the George Washington kind from the American Revolution, got lots of car honks from supportive Jeffco citizens. Asked whether their teachers “put them
SEP 25
A Response to Marc Tucker: Can We Win the Struggle For Democracy When Big Money Writes Public Education Policy?
By Denny Taylor. I have read with interest the dialogue between Marc Tucker, Diane Ravitch, Anthony Cody, and Yong Zhao on the establishment of an American test-based public education accountability system. Forty years of research on the impact of political structures on social systems,[1], [2] in particular public education,[3] leads me to categorize Marc Tucker’s rhetoric as nothing more than po
Jefferson County Students and Teachers Protest Revised American History Curriculum
By Paula Noonan. Both the last straw and the straw that broke the camel’s back dropped onto Jefferson County Schools on the night of September 18 at the Jefferson County Schools Board Meeting. The next morning 50 Jefferson County teachers, unable to carry any straws anymore, called in sick or took personal leave. Parents, teachers, citizens turned to twitter to share the new history content. The B
SEP 23
Opposition Researchers Target New Mexico Facebook Education Activist
By Anthony Cody. A New Mexico mother of four has been targeted by conservative political leaders unhappy with her education activism on Facebook and in her community. Kathy Korte serves on the Albuquerque school board, and is active in a grassroots organization called Stand4KidsNM, which has an active Facebook page here, and a website here. The group has been active for the past year, and in Octob
York, Pennsylvania, Community Rallies Against School Privatization
By Becky Pringle, Vice President, National Education Association. It has been three years since Governor Tom Corbett cut millions of dollars from York City public schools, creating a funding crisis that is still being felt in the city’s schools today. David Meckley, Corbett’s hand-picked ‘chief recovery officer’ for the district, now wants to solve the schools’ financial challenges by handing ove
Are the New Reform Cops the Same as the Old Cops?
By John Thompson. The old test-driven, accountability-driven school reform movement is overextended, cut off, and heading for a catastrophic defeat – and they know it. That is why some of its most zealous crusaders are doubling down on anti-teacher legal campaigns. This is the accountability hawks’ last chance to prove that they were right all along in taking the Big Stick approach to school impro
SEP 22
Straight Out of Brooklyn: Public Education Nation
PUBLIC EDUCATION NATION from Schoolhouse Live on Vimeo. For years, reformers have talked down to students, parents and teachers. Now it’s time for us talk back! Join Diane Ravitch, Anthony Cody and Leonie Haimson as they take on Common Core, charters and school closures, and other threats to public education, October 11, 2014, 12-5 PM (EST), for the first ever Public Education Nation webcast, on s
Chicago Teacher: Privatized Janitorial Services Mean Dirty Bathrooms and Classrooms
By Michelle Gunderson. My friend who is a janitor in the Chicago Public Schools told me that he warned his daughters to only use the bathrooms at school if they have to. He said, “I know how impossible it is to get our schools clean right now. It just can’t be done with the cutbacks.” Can you imagine telling your child that school is too dirty to safely use the toilet? Last March the Chicago Schoo
SEP 20
Time to Give Up: Yong Zhao Responds to Marc Tucker
A Response to Marc Tucker’s Response to Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody on Fixing Our National Accountability System By Yong Zhao. I was very impressed with Marc Tucker’s indictment of the test-based accountability system that has been in place for over a decade: The test-based accountability system now universally mandated in the United States—a system that reflects in every way the blue-collar co