When Trump announced limits on travel to Cuba, he was actually executing a clever move to undercut his rivals in the hotel industry that have built new hotels in Cuba. Under the new Trump policy, Americans can still travel to Cuba, but they have to stay in AirBNB, often squalid residences. They can’t stay in the new American built hotel. Clearly, if Trump owned a hotel in Cuba, American policy wo
This is great news for those who have been calling attention to the corporate reform assault on public schools. We couldn’t gain attention when Obama and Duncan were promoting privatization and bashing teachers. But Betsy DeVos stripped away the pretense of “the civil rights issue of our time.” All you have to do is look at the patented billionaire smirk, listen to her prattle about public school
The Pennsylvania legislature is considering a bill to “reform” charter schools, but it still allows charters to drain resources from public schools without reimbursement, and it still preserves the low-performing cybercharters that milk
CNN Reports that Donald Trump blocks people on Twitter if they insult him. I understand his reaction, as I have blocked a few incendiary people myself. But then I am not President. I am not responsible for the defense of our nation and crucial decisions every day. I’m pretty busy for a person my age, but I confess I don’t have time to read every tweet directed at me. Trump apparently has plenty o
Kentucky was one of the few remaining states that did not have charters or vouchers. Its public schools are better than those in Tennessee, where School Choice is heavily concentrated in Memphis and Nashville (children of color are
Amy Shuffelton, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, asks why PBS chose to air “School Inc.” when it was so clearly biased and evidence-free. The three-hour program began to air in April, although some local PBS affiliates chose not
Eva Moskowitz wants the world to know how to achieve student success. She has launched a national institute to tell everyone how to achieve high high high test scores. http://www.successacademies.org/edinstitute/ Does she mention the
Gary Rubinstein received a training film that Teach for America uses to prepare new recruits during their five-week preparation period for teaching. He found it very disturbing. Young people are given a portrait of a “system” that neglects children, and they are sent like Superman to fix things. No wonder so many of these idealistic young people don’t stay in teaching, when they discover how hard
Legislators in South Carolina must have been following an ALEC script when they authorized Virtual charter schools to enroll students and take money away from their underfunded public schoools. Or maybe they were paid off by lobbyists. There is certainly massive evidence, even from charter advocates, that virtual charters get terrible results. Yet no matter how much they fail, they are never clos
Paul Thomas had an awful day. His mother was in one hospital, his father in another, and he reflected on the competitive “gladiator culture” instilled in us. He wondered what kind of a society this would be if we learned to be cooperative and compassionate, instead of tough and competitive. What kind of world would it be for our children? “The gladiator culture of the U.S. is replicated exponenti
Mike Klonsky finds it ironic that a charter school would be named for Cesar Chavez , who devoted his life to organizing farm workers in California into a union so they could bargain for higher wages and better working conditions. As Mike knows, the Walton Family Foundation is currently spending $200 million a year to open new charters, and the Waltons oppose unions. The WFF claims credit for open
If you live in or near New York City, I hope you will join me, Leonie Haimson, and others who fight for better public schools at the annual Class Size Matters dinner on June 20.. At the event, Leonie gives out the Skinny Award (not the Broad Prize) to champions of public schools. There is a change of location, due to sudden closing of restaurant where originally scheduled. Bet this doesn’t happen
Mercedes Schneider writes here about what Pearson did to students in Mississippi. Scores were misreported. Some students graduated whose scores were too low. Some failed to graduate even though they passed the tests. The state fired Pearson. Can you believe that politicians allow standardized tests to determine the life course of students. Doing so is the height of stupidity.
Nancy Kaffer, writing for the Detroit Free Press, assesses the failure of School Choice in Detroit. http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2017/06/07/detroit-schools-charters/375076001/ Charters, like public schools, underfunded. Large classes. Teacher shortage. Well, the good news for billionaires is that their taxes stay low instead of funding good schools for all students.
In Chicago, 1,000 teachers from 32 charter schools voted to join the nation’s most militant teachers union, the CTU. There are 125 charter schools in Chicago, according to CPS data. “Unionized teachers at Chicago’s charter schools are one step closer to unifying with their counterparts in the city’s public school district, a historic move that would strengthen opposition to austerity and neoliber
At a public comment session of the Denver school board, Kate Burnite, a student who had just graduated from DPS, scolded the entire Denver school board for taking dark money from the Koch brothers, DFER, and other outside groups who love charters. All seven board members were funded by corporate outsiders. Kate called upon the board to represent the people of Denver, not the big money that funded
All over the country, PBS stations are showing anti-public school propaganda in a three-hour series called “School Inc.” This series was paid for by libertarian foundations who want for-profit schools, vouchers, charters, and for-profit teachers, competing for students. The lead funder is the Rose-Mary and Jack Anderson Foundation, which supports radical libertarian causes and acts as a funnel fo
Jane Mayer, author of “Dark Money” and other exposes of the power of big money, wrote an article In 2013 for the New Yorker about the difficulty that NYC’s PBS station encountered when it agreed to run a documentary that
