Ann Cronin taught English for many years in Connecticut, which has one of the most successful state school systems in the nation. However, Connecticut has several districts where people live in dire poverty. Under the administration of
This is second in Mark Weber’s two-part series about an amazing charter school in Philadelphia. He reveals its secrets: it gets more funding than public schools. It chooses its students with care. It loses students who can’t make the grade. A
Jersey Jazzman, aka teacher Mark Weber, reviews the blossoming of choice-choice-choice this summer. Behind it, he says, is a failure of honesty and will. In recent weeks, we have been besieged with testimonials and heartening stories about choice. “The clever thing about this construction is that anyone who challenges the narrative is immediately put on the defensive: Why are you against helping
Texas Governor Greg Abbott called a special session of the legislature to try once again to ram through vouchers, a proposal that has been repeatedly rejected by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The State Senate is led by the voucher zealot and former talk-show host Dan Patrick; the House has responsible leadership that actually wants to help the public schools that enroll some
ALEC is the fringe-right American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates for school privatization and elimination of unions, due process, and the teaching profession. It’s hero is Betsy DeVos, who is working daily to bring ALEC’s extremist agenda into the mainstream. ALEC publishes an annual report card on education, evaluating the state’s not by test scores or quality of education or resu
Please indulge me. I usually read the New York Times every day, and yesterday I could not resist juxtaposing two interesting and weird stories. This one is a Ripley “Believe It or Not” story about a woman born to a royal family in Burma who was a cross-dresser and left her family to become a warlord and major drug runner, commanding her own private army. Then there was a story about the Texas Sta
Six teens from Burundi competed recently in the international robotics contest in Washington, D.C. None had ever built a robot before but they learned to do it online and Skyping. They did well, coming in 73rd of 160 teams. When the three-day tournament was over, the entire team disappeared. Two are safely in Canada, and this article says the other four are also safe. They will likely all end up
Watch this 2-minute clip, in which New York City parents and activists explain why class size in the public schools is far too large and how this hurts children and reduces educational opportunity. After a legal challenge, a judge ten years ago ordered the city to submit a plan for smaller classes. The city promised that by 2012, classes in kindergarten through third grade would be capped at 20 c
This very important post was written for this blog by Jim Scheurich on behalf of himself, Gayle Cosby, and Nathanial Williams, who are identified in the text. They are experienced in the school politics of Indianapolis, a city whose school system is being systematically dismantled and privatized. They have been active in the fight against what they call the DPE (Destroy Public Education) model in
Jeff Bryant is doing an article about the St. Louis public schools. As he has delved into the issues, he learned how the state of Missouri has underfunded the schools for years. And he learned something more. The city is gentrifying. It wants young childless couples. Parents of school age children are a burden to the budget. “As a local St. Louis reporter tells it, during a public meeting about a
In some states, like Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, charter operators get what they want by making campaign contributions to state legislators and the governor. Florida is different. The charter operators and members of their families are members of the legislature. They shamelessly engage in self-dealing. You may well wonder: How can this be legal? I don’t know. This article in the Miami Hera
Valerie Strauss summarizes here the mess created in Florida by former Governor Jeb Bush’s harsh accountability policies and the legislation passed recently to enrich the charter industry at the expense of public schools across the state. She
