John Thompson is a historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma who blogs frequently. Reading In Search of Deeper Learning: the Quest to Remake the American High School , by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine, is like reading the Mueller report. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller compiled a thoroughly researched narrative documenting the Donald Trump’s impeachment-worthy misbehavior and law-breaking but he did
CNN says that Senator Bernie Sanders will deliver a major address on education on Saturday. He will call for a flat ban on for-profit charters. He supports the NAACP’s call for a moratorium on new charters. Most important is this: The Vermont independent also will call for a moratorium on the funding of all public charter school expansion until a national audit on the schools has been completed.
i know we should ignore Trump but it’s hard to do that when one day he threatens to send 100,000 troops to Iran, and the next day he says he’s not. He honors the fascist leader of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, and claims he’s widely respected for what he’s accomplished, like stifling a free press and attacking Hungary’s nascent democratic institutions while attacking immigrants, Muslims, and crushing di
The NYC Department of Education wanted to close PS 25 in Brooklyn to make room for a Success Academy charter middle school, but parents and activists fought them in court. Yesterday the Resistance won . PS 25 will stay open! PS 25 is a high-poverty, high-performing school. It has small classes, and Leonie Haimson says it demonstrates the importance of class size. Leonie and her small-but-mighty o
Chalkbeat’s Philissa Cramer reports that Betty Rosa, Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, wrote that it is time to reconsider the Regents exams. Students must pass five Regents exams to graduate high school. New York is one of only 11 states with high school exit exams. Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa published a column in an online newspaper accessible to members of the New York S
Howard Blume writes in the Los Angeles Times about the new political landscape in education after Jackie Goldberg’s landslide election to the LAUSD school board. Jackie met with Superintendent Austin Beutner, and both pledged to work for the passage of Measure EE, a tax proposal that would raise $500 million in new revenues for the public schools. More than anything else, Goldberg is stressing th
The Southern Education Foundation posted a very handy analysis of the education budgets of southern states. Florida’s budget is a big win for Jeb Bush and Betsy Devos. Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed a small increase in funding for K-12 public schools (about 5%), but the outlay for vouchers will grow by 50% from 2018-2020, and the outlay for charter facilities will triple in the same time peri
Rucker Johnson, economist and professor of public policy at Berkeley, has written an important new book called Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works. It arrives at an opportune moment, as the Disruption Movement (AKA Reformers, Deformers) has decided that school segregation is a very good thing indeed, because charters are more segregated than public schools. A charter operator in M
You may hear choice zealots boasting about Jeb Bush’s “Florida Model.” As Tom Ultican explains here, they are delusional or just making stuff up (to put it politely). Ultican relies on Sue Legg’s excellent report and digs down to show that the motivation behind Jeb’s so-called A+ plan was profits and religion, not education. Jeb Bush and his friends have made Florida into a low-performing mess th
Grant Frost writes here about the plans of the new Conservative premier of Alberta to fix the schools by introducing charters and market competition. Grant attended the last NPE conference in Indianapolis. He makes clear here what has been muddy in the U.S. Privatization of public schools is a conservative goal. Frost writes: There is a very famous anecdote about McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc and h
The National Education Association released its 2019 report card on the charter industry, and the findings were dismal. As one would expect, public money+weak regulation+lax oversight=fraud, waste, and abuse. Of the 44 states that allow charters schools (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico), only five jurisdictions rate “mediocre” or better. The report, titled “State Charter Laws: NEA Report Card,” conclud
Gary Rubinstein thought that Ohio paid more money than any other state to Teach for America, at the rate of $20,000 per recruit. Chicken feed! One state paid TFA $90,000 for each recruit! He writes: A few days ago I wrote about how Texas pays TFA $5.5 million for 400 recruits, or about $15,000 per recruit. Yesterday I wrote about how Ohio paid $2 million to TFA for 100 recruits, or about $20,000
Cynthia Liu, a journalist in California, writes: With public education champion Jackie Goldberg’s win on the LAUSD school board seat, it’s time for public school advocates to keep the momentum surging! Update on charter accountability bills: 1507 was voted on Monday and passed out of assembly and goes to the California State Senate. YAY & THANK YOU to all who called and voted YES. But two additio
Nebraska loves its public schools! It remains one of the few states to reject vouchers, charters, and the Common Core. Nebraska’s Legislature said NO again to vouchers! From: Stand for Schools info@standforschools.org > Date: Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:46 PM Subject: With your help, we defeated LB 670! Thank you. For the third year in a row, with your help, we did it. On Monday, Senator Linehan’s tax
I will be in Columbus, Ohio, tomorrow, for a public discussion with Bill Phillis sponsored by Public Education Partners at the Sheraton Hotel in Columbus, Capitol Square, 6 pm. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/moving-public-education-forward-tickets-59663258412 Bill Phillis reports: State Board of Education adopted a resolution stating the Board does not support HB 70 of the 131 st General Asse
The New York Legislature is considering legislation to affirm that parents have a right to opt out of state testing, and that school officials have an affirmative duty to inform them of their rights. The current testing regime is invalid and unreliable. It does not inform instruction. It has no purpose other than to demoralize students and teachers. Please add your name in support of this legisla
Gary Rubinstein has the answer here. Which state pays $20,000 for each recruit TFA sends to work in its schools after a five-week training course? Can you guess? How much does your state pay TFA to send young teachers who agree to stay for two years?
Jeff Bryant explains why many Democrats and progressives are backing away from the charter school idea. It is not just because Trump and DeVos are pushing charters, though surely that is one reason. Arne Duncanpromoted charters as enthusiastically as DeVos. But something has changed. Bryant writes: The politics of charter schools have changed, and bipartisan support for these publicly funded, pri
At the annual conference of the NewSchools Venture Fund, which raises millions to launch charter schools, there was a sour and tremulous mood, according to Matt Barnum in Chalkbeat. A group from the Oakland Education Association picketed outside the meeting, and the conveyors focused in on “the unions” as their big problem. It was especially galling to them that some of their own charters had bee
In her book, After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform, Andrea Gabor identified school districts and educators who exemplified a truly forward-thinking, innovative path out of our current political stalemate. One of those districts was Leander, Texas, which was applying the principles of management guru W. Edwards Deming, thanks to a waiver from repressive state man
Jeannie Kaplan was twice elected to the school board in Denver. She has long been active in civil rights and education issues. She has been a persistent and vocal critic of school closings, choice, and boasting about paltry gains in test scores. She was ignored by the “Reformers” like Michael Bennett and Tom Boasberg. As “Reform” money poured into Denver elections, the grassroots candidates she f
Jackie Goldberg won the empty seat on the Los Angeles school board, the one vacated by convicted charter school operator Ref Rodriguez. She swept to victory with 72.68% of the vote in District 5, despite the fact that her opponent had the support of the charter industry, the mayor, and the LA Times. Her election is a rebuff to Eli Broad and the other billionaires who tried to buy the school board
On May 20, there will be an informed discussion of the recent wave of strikes and what it portends for the future of the labor movement. The event is at Housing Works Cafe at 126 Crosby Street in NYC. The event is free and features organizers and journalists in the contemporary labor movement who will discuss recent union rebellions across the country—including teachers, graduate students, museum
Sue M. Legg is a scholar at the University of Florida, a leader in Florida’s League of Women Voters, and a new board member of the Network for Public Education. She has written an incisive and devastating critique of Jeb Bush’s education program in Florida, which began twenty years ago. Bush called it his A+ Plan, but by her careful analysis, it rates an F. Advocates of school choice tout Florida
When West Virginia teachers went out on strike in 2018, setting off a national wave of teachers’ strikes, one of their core demands was “no charter schools.” Governor Jim Justice promised that he would veto any charter school legislation. The teachers know that charter schools divert money from public schools, which are already underfunded in West Virginia. When charter and voucher legislation wa
Peter Greene reviews a push-poll commissioned by DFER (Democrats for Education Reform), the hedge fund managers organization, created to promote charter schools. Greene wisely notes that DFER is trying to encourage Democrats not to walk away from charter schools, which have become radioactive as the stories of charter scandals proliferate. Step back and what you see is a context in which the Teac
Gary Rubinstein has been following the progress—or lack thereof—of Tennessee’s Achievement School District. Funded with $100 million from Race to the Top money, led by a top-drawer charter school operator from YES Prep, it was supposed to take the lowest-performing schools in the state and catapult them into the top performing, in only five years. The secret ingredient for their promised success
As rhe evidence for the failure of vouchers accumulates, its friends push harder to enact them before the word gets out that they actually harm children. Nebraska is the target now . Voucher advocates are pushing a tax credit there that would divert millions from public schools. The vast majority of students would suffer loss of funding so a tiny number could enroll in schools nowhere as good as
Tomorrow is the runoff for the empty seat on the Los Angeles school board, pitting veteran teacher-activist Jackie Goldberg against novice pol Heather Repinning. In the first round, Jackie won 48% of the vote to Heather’s 13%. The election should be a walk, but the Corporate Reformers fear Jackie, who has a wealth of experience as a former school board member and state legislator. So the billiona
Jennifer Berkshire and historian Jack Schneider conduct a very interesting discussion with scholars who have written about no-excuses charter schools and public Montessori schools. They interview Mira Debs of Yale and Joanne Golann of Vanderbilt about their research. They wonder, what do parents want? The answers might surprise you. Incidentally, I communicated to Berkshire and Schneider that the
I started this blog in 2012. Readership began building and reached amazing heights. But in 2016, something strange began to happen. Readers began disappearing. Many contacted me offline to ask if I had blocked them. Of course, I had not. I contacted WordPress, where I always get a very fast response from people they call “Happiness Engineers.” They told me that Facebook had changed its algorithm,
Stuart Egan writes that members of the General Assembly seek adjustments to the state’s voucher program to make it even less transparent and less accountable than at present. The General Assembly has committed to spend nearly $1 billion on this program by 2026-2027 even though the schools that get the vouchers have no standards for academics or for teacher qualifications. 93% of the voucher schoo
David Weigel wrote this in the Washington Post. I could not find a link. A great story about the odoriferous Gov. Matt Bevin, scourge of teachers: SHELBYVILLE, Ky. — On Friday night, the three leading Democrats in the race for governor of Kentucky stood under a portrait of Colonel Sanders to answer their state’s biggest political question. Who could beat Gov. Matt Bevin, the Republican who had be
There are three important California assembly bills AB 1505, AB 1506, and AB 1507 designed to help clean up the charter school mess. 1507 will be going up for a vote by the full assembly TODAY, Monday, May 13. This bill would forbid charters from being placed in school districts that do not want them by other districts as a moneymaking scheme. NPE has reported on the fiscal malfeasance, online sc
Chris Hughes co-founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg. He is no longer part of the company but left with a considerable fortune. For a time, he was publisher of The New Republic. In this essay , which appeared in The New York Times, he says again and again that he really likes his old friend Mark. Great guy. A good, kind person. But dear friend Mark has too much power, and no one should have that
David Cole is National Legal Director of the ACLU. He wrote the best, most incisive analysis of the Mueller Report, describing precisely what it found. The report is an indictment in all but name, and he explains why. The Report, he writes, lays out in meticulous detail both a blatantly illegal effort by Russia to throw the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump and repeated efforts by Presid
Chalkbeat reports that a parent has filed a federal complaint against Success Academy for releasing her daughter’s records to the media. A former Success Academy parent filed a federal privacy complaint Thursday claiming the charter network violated her daughter’s rights by releasing her education records to a reporter, including notes from psychologists and her special education learning plan. T
Peter Greene, retired teacher ( thirty-nine years in the classroom and blogger extraordinaire ) and Van Schoales (Colorado reformer) agree : education reform as we know it now is over. Greene reminds us (as if we need reminding) that not so long ago, charter schools were considered a bipartisan reform; today, with Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos singing the praises of charter schools, there is a wid
This is a shocker. Gary Rubenstein reports that the state of Texas pays Teach for America $5.5 million a year for 400 recruits. This is a sweet deal for TFA but a bad deal for Texas taxpayers. He writes: ”TFA provides the state with a report that makes it seem like they are doing a lot with this money, but considering that they recruit about 400 corps members into Texas and only 85% of them even
Tennessee passed Governor Bill Lee’s voucher bill by one vote, and the FBI is investigating whether the change of that vote at the last minute was the result of an illegal bribe. At the time, it appeared that the incentive for the one lawmaker was a promise not to offer vouchers in HIS district. FBI agents have begun interviewing Tennessee lawmakers about whether any improper incentives were offe
School officials in Warwick, Rhode Island, decided to crack down on students who had not paid their lunch bills; they announced that any student in arrears would get a cold sandwich, not a hot lunch. The choice was either peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or–for those allergic to peanut butter–sunbutter and jelly sandwiches. The story of “lunch shaming” got national media attention, and money b
At a recorded performance of a Mozart piece at Boston Symphony Hall, a little boy said at the very conclusion, at the very moment when you could hear a pin drop, a very audible “WOW.” The audience laughed and applauded. The Handel and Haydn Society searched and found the child. He was attending the concert with his grandfather, who said the child was on the autism spectrum and he had never seen t
The Houston Independent School District Board did not renew its contract to hire Teach for America recruits. TFA profits handsomely on each person it places, collecting $3,000-$5,000 per person. Is it a rental fee or a finders’ fee? The organization has accumulated more than $300 million in assets and has created an international operation called Teach for All, which undermines teachers’ unions a
Dr. Ryan Shaw, assistant professor of music education at Michigan State University, wrote this post urging the legislature not to scrap the 1-credit arts education requirement for high school graduation. There is a move underway to drop that requirement and replace it with a potpourri of “21st century skills.” As Dr. Shaw points out, this is sheer nonsense. There is no more important 21st century
William Mathis is managing director of the National Education Policy Center and a member of the Vermont Board of Education. He says that you can take the model below and apply it to any state; the result will be the same. The high
