An earlier post this morning said that two young TFA had run a “successful” charter school in Chicago and were invited to open a charter in Indianapolis. They are both under 30. https://dianeravitch.net/2017/07/09/indianapolis-as-
Laura Chapman posted this comment, which I hope you will read: Readers should know that GreatSchools.org website supports redlining. This is a non-profit website and organization in name only. Zillow, for example, pays a fee to
Every day I get fund-raising appeals from Democratic and progressive national organizations. They usually include a list of critical issues and ask me which one I care most about. They never include K-12 schooling, which is now being
Erica Green of the New York Times wrote that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has “surprised” everyone by insisting that the state accountability plans must be more demanding, more “ambitious,” stronger in setting goals. Please note that DeVos spent over a million dollars rewarding the Michigan legislature in 2016 for blocking accountability standards for low-performing charter schools in Michi
This is unbelievable but true. A convicted felon who had served four years in prison for grand theft and arson was chosen as president of the board of a small Florida charter school, where she was convicted of stealing from the school. She is heading back to prison. You can’t make this stuff up. “Despite spending four years in prison for arson and grand theft, and having multiple arrests for writ
I wrote a few posts last week (see here and here ) about the devastation of public schools in Indianapolis by corporate reformers. Their short term goal is to close public schools and replace them with privately managed charters. In the meanwhile, they are eliminating the neighborhood high school concept and requiring students to choose a high school based on its programs, not its proximity to ho
Jeff Bryant argues cogently in this article that Democrats should unite on behalf of a charter school moratorium. If the Democratic party wants to revive its base–labor and civil rights–it should heed Jeff’s sound advice. Charters and school choice were never a natural fit with the public philosophy of the Denocratic party, which recognized the power of government to advance the common good, beca
Jersey Jazzman notes that Chris Christie will soon leave office as the most unpopular governor in the nation. He loved to ridicule those who disagreed with him, and one of his favorite targets was the state’s public schools and teachers, most especially their union. He never acknowled that the state is one of the three top-performing states on national tests (NAEP), the other two being Massachuse
Indiana has one of the nation’s largest voucher programs (34,000 students) and has been in operation long enough to collect four years of data. The latest voucher study reached the conclusion that students who get vouchers fall behind in the first two years, notably in math, but eventually catch up to their public school peers. But do they? Steve Hinnefeld reported on the release of the study, bu
A reader sent me the link to this poster, which appears in the current issue of MAD Magazine. I don’t customarily engage in ridicule, but what DeVos is doing to the public schools of America, what she is doing to civil rights enforcement, and what she is doing to college students struggling to pay for their education is beyond ridiculous.
Led by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy, the state attorneys general in 19 states sued Betsy zdezvos, who is failing to protect the interests of college students who are preyed upon by for-profit colleges, like the defunct Trump University. This Secretary has carved out a unique role as the defender of corporate interests against the rights of students. Her motto might as well be “Let t
Let’s begin with the stipulation that the lists of “America’s Best High Schools” based on test scores or AP coursetaking encourage schools to game the system and are invalid on their face. Then, congratulations to Gary Rubinstein! He not
