The American edition of The Guardian, a British newspaper, has https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/05/public-lands-project-description?utm_source=eml&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&CMP_TU=&CMP_BUNIT=&att5=tarted a series to cover any efforts to sell off our national lands or lease them to oil and gas interests or for mining. “At a moment of deep political division, few issues draw as much
Randy Rainbow is a delightful humorist. In this post, he performs a Broadway medley about “Covfefe,” the word Trump introduced on Twitter a few days ago. “Despite constant negative press Covfefe,” the full tweet. Some think he fell
The organization “In the Public Interest” reports that global equity investors are gearing up for Trump’s infrastructure plan. Question: if the banks own bridges and tunnels, can they put fees on them and raise fees whenever they want? They
From a teacher in New Jersey: Testing Frenzy Steals Learning Time from Students The public school testing frenzy is at an all-time high, and it is robbing our students of time to learn. Take it from me, an elementary school teacher from New Jersey with more than 30 years of experience. In an effort to be ready for the state-mandated PARCC tests, we are hurting the very students we most wish to he
Voucher advocates like to point to Vermont as the nation’s oldest program. When it was started in 1869, it was intended to pay the tuition of students whose town did not have a public school. It has very little in common with the curren voucher movement, which takes its inspiration from the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, who wrote a seminal essay in 1955 proposing that all students should
Peter Greene has a genius for taking complicated ideas and boiling them down to their essence in language that everyone can understand. This post is a classic example of that genius. Others have written entire books trying to explain what he says concisely here. In the recent writings about school choice, pro and con, Peter Greene was especially affronted by a statement from Kevin Chavous, who wo
If you wonder why people become teachers and remain in the classroom, watch this vide o created by the teachers at Sunburst Elememtary School in Glendale, Arizona. They are having fun! They have a culture of happiness. Not every public school is happy. But those with a strong culture are like families. Watch this family of teachers cavorting for the joy of it. By the way, I googled the school and
This is a sordid story with a happy ending. It tells how the deep-pocketed charter industry tried to silence and discredit a scholar who disagreed with them. The story appears in the Nonprofit Quarterly. Professor Julia Sass Rubin is an associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. She has researched charter schools in New Jersey, and o
When she was questioned by Congress, Betsy DeVos let the cat out of the bag about vouchers. The U.S. Department of Education will hand out money for vouchers and will not enforce civil rights laws. “She lifted the curtain on school vouchers and made clear exactly what this system of using taxpayer funds to pay for private and religious schools is. “It’s a way for some parents, particularly bigots
Harold Meyerson, editor of The American Prospect, raised a question that I have heard dozens of times: Why do billionaires care so much about charter schools ? Why have so many of the 1% decided that charter schools will provide a better education than public schools? Are we to believe that the Walton Family, Eli Broad, Michael Dell, Doris Fischer, Reed Hastings, and many lesser-known billionaire
The Washington Post published a deeply researched expose today about the “secret universe” of “charities” that fueled the election of Donald Trump. Please understand before reading this that the Internal Revenue Service classifies
