I’m posting Hillary Clinton’s Commencement Address t o the Class of 2017 at Wellesley College for a few reasons. First, I wanted to hear what she had to say and after I did, wanted to share it with you. Second, she is a graduate of
Annie Waldman wrote this article for ProPublica in January, after DeVos’s confirmation hearing and before she was confirmed. I’m sorry I missed it. Waldman tried to pin down DeVos’s views on creationism. As we have learned,
The American Indian Model School in Oakland has a checkered history. It began as a school for American Indians. It was taken over by a swaggering, authoritarian leader named Ben Chavis. Chavis quietly got rid of the American
Gene V. Glass, one of the nation’s most distinguished education researchers, posted a blog about the experience of parents applying to a charter school in Arizona. Arizona is unusual in that it has no laws against nepotism or conflicts of interest. The Challenger Charter School is unusual in that it is owned by the former president of the State Board of Education and run by his wife and daughter.
Mercedes Schneider wrote a post about 50CAN, which exists to spread the gospel of charter schools, state-run “Achievement school districts,” and high-stakes grading systems (unclear whether the high-stakes are only for public schools, as most states haven’t done much to identify or close failing charter schools). Their agenda is a match with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Be
50CAN is a corporate reform organization that originated in Connecticut as ConnCAN. It was led by the billionaire Jonathan Sackler. Sackler owns Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which created the drug OxyContin, which is a highly addictive painkiller. The drug financing the expansion of charter schools made the Sackler family very wealthy (at last count, a net worth of $14 billion), but it is also implica
At her Congressional hearing, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was asked directly if she would deny federal funding to the Lighthouse Christian zacademy in Bloomington, Indiana, which explicitly bans the enrollment ipof students who are homosexual or who live in a family where homosexual activity is practiced. “Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, cited Lighthouse Christian Academy’s enrollme
The principal of the Crescent Leadership Academy, a charter school in New Orleans, was fired after he was filmed wearing Nazi rings and participating in a “white genocide” tape. The students in the school are almost all African-American. It is a second-chance school for students who have been expelled. Nicholas Dean, the principal of Crescent Leadership Academy, a charter school in New Orleans th
Politico Morning Education reports that the U.S. Department of Education f inds that an extraordinary proportion of black and Hispanic students are enrolled in high-poverty schools. The combination of racial segregation and poverty is a clear indicator of high risk for students. They will not have the benefits of peer effects which comes from economically and racially diverse schools. Nor are the
Jeff Bryant has read Betsy DeVos’s speeches slamming public schools and extolling the virtues of public subsidy for private and religious schools. She carefully selects an anecdote to make her case. But she is late to the party. There is now persuasive evidence that students in voucher schools get worse results than their peers in public schools. In addition, many of those who use vouchers are st
Rob Barnett teaches mathematics in a D.C. public high school. He is faced every year with a dilemma. Does he pass or fail the student who is not ready, who has not mastered the course? He notes that D.C.’s graduation rate has soared, yet its NAEP scores are virtually unchanged since 2005. Its PARCC scores are even worse. NCLB and Race to the Top pressured teachers like him to get the graduation r
Arne Duncan used to boast about the rising high school graduation rate, but he never talked about one cause of the increase: online credit recovery. Slate has run a multi-part series on the online credit recovery racket. Imagine a student failing a one-year course, then earning full credit in less than one week. It has its benefits: superintendents get praised for the steady increase in the gradu
John Kuhn is superintendent of a school district in Texas. He is one of the nation’s most eloquent spokesmen for children and public schools. He first came to national attention when he spoke at the Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C. In 2011. He describes the recent legislative session, where an effort was made to improve school funding, but the Semate leaders knowingly sabotaged it. He w
Reader Jack Covey watched Betsy DeVos testify at a Congressional hearing and was startled by what he saw and heard: “What’s scary is Secretary Devos’ tacit claim that, when it comes to schools that receive government funding — charter
