CURMUDGUCATION : Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION Investors Warned Off Pearson 2 by Peter Greene / 1h Today The Daily Telegraph, in its Questor business section, warned investors to stay away from Pearson stock. Writer James Ashton notes that one need not "monitor Donald Trump’s late-night Twitter feed" to get some sense of his opinion about education, specifically that Herr Trump does not think that
Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: Protect Public Education - Stop Betsy DeVos! : Protect Public Education - Stop Betsy DeVos! Billionaire Betsy's Brave New World of Nationwide Racist Privatized Education VIDEO: HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/47OC7WZBWZM PROTECT PUBLIC EDUCATION - STOP BETSY DEVOS! Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary is a threat to public e
Jeb Bush may have won something in the election after all: the U.S. Department of Education - The Washington Post : Jeb Bush may have won something in the election after all: the U.S. Department of Education One of the defining Donald Trump mantras during the Republican presidential primary session was that Jeb Bush was a “low-energy” candidate — and that’s not the worst thing he said about him.
From Sports Fanaticism to Plagiarism: This Week in What Is Wrong with Education | radical eyes for equity : From Sports Fanaticism to Plagiarism: This Week in What Is Wrong with Education In the fall of 1984, I entered the field of education as a high school English teacher, assigned the exact room in which I had been a student and where my mentor, Lynn Harrill, had taught before moving on to a d
solidaridad: NPE Action endorses Alva and Petersen for the LAUSD Board of Education : NPE Action endorses Alva and Petersen for the LAUSD Board of Education The Network for Public Education Action is proud to endorse two candidates for the Los Angeles Board of Education District 2 primary election— Lisa Alva and Carl Petersen. Although it is very unusual for us to endorse two for the same positio
Before DeVos, look at Florida's school 'reform' mess - Orlando Sentinel : Before DeVos, look at Florida's school 'reform' mess Betsy DeVos wants to bring education 'reform' nationwide. In Florida, even 'reformers' regret what they did This week, Congress began vetting Donald Trump's Cabinet nominations. Fireworks flew as members vetted nominees such as Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. I don'
Schools Matter: The Corporate Education Reform Poster State : The Corporate Education Reform Poster State Since Lamar Alexander served as Governor in the 1980s, Tennessee has been at the forefront of corporate education reform. Tennessee was in the first wave of states to initiate mandatory student competency on standardized tests in order to get a diploma, and it was one of the first to ram down
Questions from California: what education leaders would ask Betsy DeVos – if they could | EdSource : Questions from California: what education leaders would ask Betsy DeVos – if they could Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is expected to hold a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. A lot has been written about he
See how Betsy DeVos responded to Senate questionnaire on conflicts of interest, lobbying | MLive.com : See how Betsy DeVos responded to Senate questionnaire on conflicts of interest, lobbying With her confirmation hearing slated for Tuesday, West Michigan native Betsy DeVos - Donald Trump's pick for U.S. Secretary of Education - is in the process of addressing questions over any potential ethical
Keeping Retirement Weird. Senator Biss’ view on pension theft seems to have changed. Activism works. | Fred Klonsky : Keeping Retirement Weird. Senator Biss’ view on pension theft seems to have changed. Activism works. Back in 2013, Skokie Senator Dan Biss’ name was synonymous with pension theft. He was then, and is now, a liberal Democratic member of the Illinois General Assembly. Some suspect h
The Student Progress At KIPP Is Small And Dim (Clap Clap Clap Clap) Deep In The Heart Of Texas | Gary Rubinstein's Blog : The Student Progress At KIPP Is Small And Dim (Clap Clap Clap Clap) Deep In The Heart Of Texas Reformers love A-F school ratings. They think that giving a school a single letter grade will inform parents to make the best ‘choice’ of where they should send their child. The idea
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Participatory Democracy: When voting is not enough. : Participatory Democracy: When voting is not enough. Democracy is not a sport where the two teams do battle every few years and we as spectators cheer our team on, hoping for the best and then watching the post-game show on cable. We're told, the best we can hop for in this case, is a "peaceful transition" of powe
THE SHADOW OF INEQUITY « Dad Gone Wild : THE SHADOW OF INEQUITY In public education circles, we spend a great deal of time talking about equity. As much talking as we do, though, we struggle with actually defining it, and we have a hard time grasping that what is equal isn’t always fair, and what is fair isn’t always equal. We’ve all seen the graphic that illustrates the difference between equali
Truth: Why vouchers and school choice were created – Cloaking Inequity : Truth: Why vouchers and school choice were created Donald Trump promised during his presidential campaign to spend $20 billion on school choice in his first 100 days . The rumor out of DC is that those funds will come from Title I —if he actually keeps this campaign promise. The fact that Betsy DeVos, a prominent supporter o
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 1/13/17 Featured Post ‘After School Satan’ club starts in Mormon country — thanks to Christian groups PAA to Senate HELP committee: Vote NO on DeVos | Parents Across America
Today The Daily Telegraph, in its Questor business section, warned investors to stay away from Pearson stock. Writer James Ashton notes that one need not "monitor Donald Trump’s late-night Twitter feed" to get some sense of his opinion about education, specifically that Herr Trump does not think that education needs a giant injection of money. And that's not good news for the publishing behemoth (
The signs are everywhere. Herr trump says he doesn't need to divest business interest or release taxes because the public doesn't care and isn't interested, and the counter-argument is to cite statistics that yes, the public does care.That's swell-- but isn't the point that we have rules and laws and even Presidents are supposed to follow them? Our discourse about ourselves as a country has come u
This week, it's often looking as if the postponement of Betsy DeVos's confirmation hearing was so that she could round up a few more supporters. So here comes former Michigan Governor John Engler, the guy who helped start the process of busting up public education in Michigan. Engler opens with a nifty observation: America doesn't need any more fights around education. Yeah, I'm looking better eve
It's kind of curious. So many people are suddenly talking about vouchers again, and the only real reason that we are is because we're looking at the possibility of a Secretary of Education who just loves them and we're all trying to figure out what could come of that (Spoiler alert: nothing good). Wise researchers like Jersey Jazzman are reminding us where the voucher money ends up (Spoiler alert:
The repeated claim is that charters and choice are necessary in order for students to have options and to be able to select from many different educational programs, which makes me wonder-- are public schools made out of tofu or some other featureless, uniform substance. When you slice a public school, do you uncover the same bland surface, the same unvaried material, no matter which way you slice
I have a theory that one of the major problems in America today is just plain bad management. I have watched it trash companies on the smaller, more local scale here, and periodically we get to watch large American corporations go down in flames. For instance, consider retail giant Sears. Business Insider has published a blistering look inside the ongoing death spiral of the venerable retail giant
The Massachusetts Charter Public [sic] School Association has joined the discussion of Betsy DeVos-- and they've joined it by asking Senator Elizabeth Warren to grill DeVos a little more thoroughly. Don't worry. Confirmation hearings have to end some time. MCPSA has had a rough few months. In November, Massachusetts voters resounding rejected a proposal to lift the charter cap and let charters roa
Rick Hess (American Enterprise Institute) is using the occasion of the DeVos nomination to make some points about choice as a reform strategy. This is fair-- all of us in the education debates are both agitated about the nomination and aware that, for at least these fifteen minutes, American political discourse is actually paying attention to education. So we're all busy articulating our thoughts
Elizabeth Warren has noticed that there will be only one, brief opportunity to grill Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos, and so today she has sent DeVos a letter outlining what sorts of answers she's looking for. The whole thing is sixteen pages long, and while Warren has not always been on the right side of education debates (in particular, she believes in the Big Standardized Test), she
Mitt Romney's willingness to prostrate himself has been one of the many unpleasant surprises of the last year. At first, he was one of the GOP voices of reason, calling Trump a phony and a fraud who was “playing members of the American public for suckers.” Then Herr Trump waved the Secretary of State job, and Mittens set himself up for this: Perhaps this was the very moment when he realized that h
Some readings from the week. Share what speaks to you, so that it can speak to other folks. 10 New Years Resolutions for Those Taking Charge at US Department of Education Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute is reformster through and through, and Betsy DeVos has contributed to AEI, but this still makes for an interesting list of suggestions for the new regime We Know What Works in Teachi
Here's a recent story from the DC area Fox affiliate that shows how things play out when you privatize a public service. In this case, the service is roads. And this picture tells you what you need to know. That's right-- $30 to use the
