Reverend William Barber II is our most eloquent spokesman for civil rights today. Some believe he is the next Martin Luther King Jr. He just stepped down as head of the North Carolina NAACP, where he saw daily assaults on voting
This is an article in The Guardian that I will not attempt to summarize. What I will Di is urge you to read it. It is about money, power, and a coordinated attack on democracy. It is about data mining psychological warfare financed by a
Thomas Ultican teaches physics and mathematics to high school students in San Diego. In this post, he describes a wonderful day at the home of one of the nation’s greatest oceanographers, where middle school students performed scenes from Shakespeare. The event was sponsored by the San Diego Shakespeare Society to raise funds for middle and high schools. You will enjoy his account of a very wonde
The run-off campaign in District 4 in Los Angeles for School Board has turned into a national issue. The race between Steve Zimmer, president of the Los Angeles school board, and his challenger, Nick Melvoin, has become an epic struggle between supporters of public schools and supporters of privatization. Zimmer entered teaching through Teach for America but, unlike the typical TFA, he stayed in
Is it reasonable to give taxpayer dollars to entities that are deregulated and unsupervised? That are unaccountable and non transparent? What do you think will happen when government funds are turned over to organizations that are basically on their own and who make campaign contributions to legislator who prevent accountability for their donors? The Center for Popular Democracy explains what you
Ed Johnson is a relentless watchdog over public education in Atlanta. He happens to be a devotee of the thought of W. Edwards Deming, and he opposes the current corporate reform philosophy of disruption, top-down orders, ranking, rating, punishment, and rewards. Johnson understands that accountability begins at the top, and that the role of leadership is to support those who work in the organizat
Public education is in jeopardy in North Carolina. Please take action now! The North Carolina Senate introduced SB 603, a bill creating a new voucher program that would give $9,000 a year to students with disabilities going to non-public schools. Send an email to tell your house member to vote NO for SB 603. SB 603 is a bill that: Expands opportunities for fraud Costs more to administer than trad
The Missouri legislature ended their legislative session without passing legislation that would authorize “education savings accounts,” a form of voucher that parents could use to spend anywhere for anything. It is a path to allowing parents to spend public money on anything regardless of quality. Where ESAs exist, many children are getting a subpar education or none at all. Other countries must
Jeff Murray is the Ohio operations manager of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s offices in Columbus. He read an essay by a high school English teacher who was offended by Governor John Kasich’s proposal that teachers should be required to shadow business people if they wanted to be rectified. Murray was disturbed when a high school English teacher objected. The teacher wrote: “I believe, as a pro
I was curious to see whether the L.A. Times editorial board would stand up for public education or would join the chorus of privatization and greed. Would the editorial board be offended that billionaires are swamping the district with millions to promote the privatization candidates? Would they recall all the stories about charter scandals and corruption that the newspaper has reported? Would th
If you live in Los Angeles in one of the districts where there is a run-off, please vote for Steve Zimmer or Imelda Padilla. Don’t let the billionaires buy control of the public schools. They don’t want to improve them. They want to turn them over to the unregulated, scandal-ridden charter industry. Don’t be fooled: c harters and choice and privatization are the Trump-DeVos agenda! Howard Blume r
Gary Rubinstein read Rick Hess’s latest book, “Letters to a Young Education Reformer” and found much to admire, even though Gary is one of the most perceptive critics of what is now called “reform.” He writes: “I was eager to receive Rick Hess’s latest book ‘letters to a young education reformer.’ Hess is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conse
The Florida Department of Education, firmly in the hands of the Jeb Bush team, tried to spin the “success” of the charter industry, but Sue M. Legg of the League of Women Voters in Florida says, “Not so fast.” In this post, she explains that charter schools enroll a lower percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, of English language learners, and of students with disabilities
Andrea Gabor reviews research produced by the Education Research Alliance of New Orleans about veteran teachers, those who taught before Hurricane Katrina and returned. “ERA’s analysis provides an important before-and-after-the-storm
