Eva Moskowitz has become a favorite of the Trump White House and the Republican Party. Speaker Paul Ryan will visit her schools tomorrow. “House Speaker Paul Ryan is planning to visit a Success Academy charter school in New York City on Tuesday, sources with knowledge of the visit told POLITICO New York. Ryan’s visit will be the latest in a series of high-profile visits by Republicans to the city
Phyllis Bush, retired teacher, active member of the board of the Network for Public Education, learned last month that she has cancer. She decided to blog about it because writing about it helps her cope. Her blog also displays her wit, her wisdom, and her courage. Her blog is called “Kind of a Big Dill.” In this installment, she reports the latest news from her oncologist. She plans to take her
Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, is now president of Purdue, a soft landing for a politician with no academic bona fides. He has continued his assault on the academic integrity of the university by arranging the purchase of
Steve Nelson writes here about the erroneous assumptions behind the New York Times’ article on the “broken promise of school choice,” posted earlier today . I was especially happy to see this article, because I sensed something awry about
The New York Times published a lengthy article about New York City’s complicated and byzantine high school admissions process, which was launched 14 years ago to give choice to every student. With few (if any) exceptions,
Adam Bessie (writer) and Erik Thurman (artist) have created a graphic essay that explains in a series of drawings the consequences of school choice and how it affected students with disabilities in New Orleans. Their graphic essay is especially pertinent at a time when the U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is an evangelist for school choice and indifferent to the consequences. I recommend t
NAPLAN is Australia’s national system of tests. The acronym stands for “National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy,” a series of tests focused on basic skills administered annually to Australian students. It was introduced in 2008, in large part because of American influence and the pressure of international tests like PISA and TIMSS. But since the adoption of NAPLAN, Australia has decli
This posting comes from Phil Cullen in Australia, whose blog is The Treehorn Express. You will see some familiar names, like Rupert Murdoch, who is a media baron in Australia, and Joel Klein, who was Murdoch’s favorite education expert. As Phil Cullen explains on his blog: Treehorn is the hero of an easy-to-read children’s book: “The Shrinking of Treehorn” by Florence Heidi Parry. It clearly illu
Susan Dynarski of University of Michigan wrote an article in The New York Times about the trillion dollars of outstanding debt for college loans, and the Trump administration’s regulatory decisions that will help and protect the lending industry, not the students. As the saying goes, elections have consequences. Hillary Clinton adopted Bernie Sanders’ pledge to make higher education free for stud
I just heard from Lori Kirkpatrick, the school board candidate in Dallas who pledged to oppose privatization and end the insulting programs that rate, rank, reward and punish teachers. She is a parent of a child in the DISD. The election was last Saturday. Last night, she sent a blast email to supporters saying that the final tally showed her 14 votes shy of reaching the 50% mark that she needed
Well, we knew this was coming. Scott Pruitt, in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board. The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by red
From Sandy Stenoff of Opt Out Florida: We are “all hands on deck” in Florida and would greatly appreciate all the help we can get. Please feel free to share this e-mail. Dear Public Education allies, Florida’s 2.8 million public school children need your help now. Both the Budget and HB 7069, the Conforming bill, which contains an inappropriate number of policies and barely vetted concepts, will
The Washington Post reports that Trump questioned whether an important funding source for Historically Black Colleges and Universities is constitutional . “In February, President Trump invited leaders from historically black colleges and universities to the White House, a move they hoped signaled his support for the institutions and showed an effort to give them more clout in his administration.
In the 2012 and 2013 legislative sessions, Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee and allies in the privatization movement tried to get a parent trigger law through the Florida legislature but met a solid wall of parent resistance. Now the same forces are gathering for another run at privatizing the Sunshine State’s public schools. The method is to declare not just F schools eligible for charter takeover, but D
Laura Chapman writes here about “computer-based education” and who profits from it. “Frankly, the scariest for-profit ventures are the tech companies that hope to replace teachers and schools with their “scalable” models.” Diane Ravitch. Yes. Computer-based Education (CBE) is being marketed as personalized when it is exactly the opposite. Legislators in Ohio and elsewhere are counting on CBE to p
Ten percent of the children in California attend privately-managed charter schools. But that small number of students has the most powerful and richest lobby in the state, funded by billionaires. The overwhelming majority of charters are non-union, which appeals to the Walton family, the richest family in America, with a net worth of $130 billion or more, produced by their non-union Walmart store
Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for the Los Angeles school board. The election will be held May 16. ““Billionaires should not make a profit off of public school children. That’s why I’m supporting Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for the Los Angeles School Board. They will fight against the Trump/DeVos agenda to destabilize and undermine public schools,” said Sen. B
William J. Mathis is the the Vice-Chair of the State Board of Education in Vermont, currently managing director of the National Education Policy Center Fake News and Politicized Prevarications: The Florida State Department of
