My dear friend and ally, Phyllis Bush, started a blog to write about her experience with cancer, which she insists on calling cancer schmanzer. She is feeling better . She is cleaning closets. She is ready for the fight for her life.
This is a heartbreaking story . A young man appeared at a playground in Townsville, South Carolina, where first-graders were playing. He opened fire. A child died. The shooter, it turned out, was not a man. He was 14 years old. He
Isn’t it great to be free of people watching over your shoulder when you are in charge of the money? That’s what the employee of North Carolina’s largest voucher school thought. He just pleaded guilty to embezzling $400,000 over an eight-year period from the school. Lindsay Wagner writes: Heath Vandevender is a coach, teacher and the employee tasked with managing the payroll operations of the sta
Mercedes Schneider is not a lawyer but she is a very smart reader, who cuts to the chase. She read the recent decision by the Supreme Court about the church that wanted to participate in a state program to resurface its preschool playground with recycled tires. The decision doesn’t reach the voucher issue but it gives strong hints about where justices are likely to rule when they do get a voucher
Steven Singer has a new view of the recent Supreme Court ruling that the state of Missouri is obliged to pave the playground of a church. If churches are going to receive federal funding, he writes, they should pay taxes. What is more, think long term. Church schools that receive federal and state funding should expect to meet accountability standards for their curriculum and their hiring practic
Corporate privatizers like Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump, Arne Duncan, and Peter Cunningham (previously Duncan’s communications director, now editor of the billionaire-funded Education Post) claim that turning public money over to operators of privately-managed contract schools (aka, “charter” schools) is the “civil rights issue of our time.” But the authentic voice of the civil rights movement–the N
At the recent school board meeting of Indianapolis Public Schools, Professor Jim Scheurich of Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis got up to speak. The story he tells is similar to what happened in Denver, where Stand for Children, DFER, and other conduits for anonymous donors bought every seat on the elected school board, swamping the opposition with cash they could not match. Th
There is something very sad about watching a community’s public schools die. The Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent has recommended the closing of three public high schools due to low enrollments. These are neighborhood schools that were the heart of their communities. Two will be converted to middle schools. The other is in a gentrifying neighborhood and will probably be sold to develope
This is both sad and funny. The “Charter High School For Law and Social Justice” fired 11 of its 15 teachers because they wanted to join the teachers’ union. Doesn’t social justice mean that you listen to the voices of those who feel in need of protection and let them make their own decisions? Haven’t unions been part of the movement for social justice since the late nineteenth century? Don’t the
SomeDam Poet writes about the Supreme Court decision requiring the state of Missouri to pay for the resurfacing of the playground of the Trinity Lutheran Church: At first, SDP was puzzled by the decision and asked, “Is playing on the playground part of the Lutheran religion? “Is that why refusing the Lutheran school public money for the playground resurfacing constitutes abridgement of free exerc
Portland, Oregon, is in big trouble. Despite massive spending by the fake reform Stand on Children–err, Stand for Children–the corporate reformers lost in the school board election. Now, as local activist Deb Mayer reports , they are trying to bully a school board member into resigning. Why the attacks on a man who won his seat and supports public schools? The board has been unable to pick a new
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session of the Legislature to deal with school finance and once again to push vouchers. Once more, he will try to bribe legislators to endorse vouchers if they want more funding. No vouchers, no funding. The state cut more than $5 billion from the education budget in 2011 and has never fully restored the cuts, even though the enrollment has grown. A
ECOT is the largest virtual charter school in Ohio and among the lowest-performing schools in the state. It has thrived over the years because its founder, William Lager, has given generously to elected officials. The New York Times reported last year that ECOT had the largest graduating class in the nation, but also the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation. The Electronic Classroom o
Rachel Levy, a mother and public school activist in Virginia, explains here the lesson of the recent Democratic campaign for governor: Real Democrats support public schools. http://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/as-democrats-struggle-to-find-their-footing-in-the-trump-era/ Dr. Ralph Northam, Lt. Governor, was a strong supporter of public schools. He won the support of the Virginia Educat
Alyssa Katz, an editorial writer for the New York Daily News, is switching her child from a charter school to a New York City public school. The teacher turnover at the charter school was constant and disruptive for her daughter, she
