When the Florida House of Representatives passed the legislation to award $200 million to charter operators who opened in competition with low-performing schools, they also passed two other bills that are ugly. One would require districts to share their property taxes with charter schools. The other would make adjustments to the state’s idiotic “Best and Brightest” bonus plan for new teachers, wh
The Florida Speaker of the House said that the legislation recently passed was designed to attract national charter chains to take over low-performing public schools, such no-excuses charter schools as KIPP, SEED, and Uncommon Schools. But according to this article in Politico, the chains thus far are not
Florida has more than 600 charter schools. They open and close like day-lilies. Many operate for profit. The charter industry cannot rest so long as a public school remains undisturbed by the forces of disruption and greed. A new law has
Gary Rubinstein has become a master at unmasking “miracle” claims, you know, the schools where 100% of the students in a poor neighborhood (formerly served by a public school) graduate or 100% go to college or some equally implausible miracle. None of these claims ever turned out to be true. The miracle was attrition of the kids who were not on track to graduate. He recently discovered a charter
This is an astonishing article about the battle for fair funding of public education in Washington State, where billionaires pay a lower tax rate than working stiffs. The article appeared almost two years ago, but it remains relevant today. “Despite its image as the cutting-edge land of Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, and many other corporate icons, the state ranks near last place nationall
David Greene is a teacher, mentor, coach, the whole 100 yards. He also blogs about education, and in this post he describes what great teaching is, and gives us hope that it may survive even the current tsunami of bad ideas. David reluctantly saw a video about High Tech High, which he was floored by, because so many “reformers” love it but never replicate it. It is a project-based school of the k
School choice produces segregation: racial segregation, religious segregation, socioeconomic segregation. That is why the idea of school choice originated with Southern governors in the wake of the Brown V. Board of Education decision. They were determined to defend racially separate public schools. Their strategy was school choice. They knew that if students could choose their schools, they coul
Happy Easter! Here’s a smile for your holidays. I think you should spend today reading something other than this blog. If you are Christian, go to church or do whatever you usually do. If you are Jewish or Muslim or atheist or anything else,
