Jeff Bryant writes here about the billionaires who corrupted the school leadership pipeline. Chief among them, of course, is billionaire Eli Broad, who created an unaccredited training program as a fast track for urban superintendents. Bryant has collected stories about how superintendents who passed through the Broad program hire other graduates of the program and do business with others who are
Chalkbeat reports on a meeting in New York City where educators gathered to learn about the XQ-Robin Hood competition for “innovative” schools. First they watched a flashy video claiming that American high schools haven’t changed in 100 years, the usual disrupter claptrap. Then, after hearing that schools are obsolete, they were urged to reinvent them. But XQ and education department officials in
Andrea Gabor is a professional journalist who has the skill to tell the story that readers of this blog know very well and bring it to a larger audience. The public needs to understand the squalid theft of our public goods that is being carried out in broad daylight by so-called philanthropists. This article by Gabor was published by Harper’s, where it will reach a large public audience that does
Betsy DeVos just dropped $36 million on North Carolina to lure children out of their public schools and into charter schools. The state is not sure it can spend the money. North Carolina will now have more than $36 million in federal funding to help increase enrollment in charter schools, particularly for children from low-income groups. The N.C. Department of Public Instruction announced Tuesday
Andy Spears, editor of the Tennessee Education Report, says that Tennessee should learn from Alabama’s mistakes when authorizing charter schools. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee wants to disrupt public schools and throw open the public treasury to anyone who wants to open a charter school. He wants charters to open without the approval of local school districts, a recipe for disruption and an attack
Mike Petrilli, the CEO of the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute, published a report about the “dramatic achievement gains” of the 1990s and 2000s. Surprisingly, he attributes most of these gains to improving economic conditions for poor families of color, not to standards, testing, and accountability, a cause that TBF has championed for years. But, not to worry, TBF has not changed its stripe
Day 2 of CTU strike will bring educators, allies to City Hall at 1:30 pm Some movement at bargaining table Thursday, but no agreement on special ed needs, classroom overcrowding, salary floor for low-wage teaching assistants, staffing shortages. CHICAGO —Educators and frontline staff will hit the picket lines for a second day today, as rank and file union members attempt to bargain a fair contrac
Mike Klonsky just posted this as he was leaving to bring coffee and donuts to striking teachers, including his daughter. I hope this strike has a good outcome for both the teachers and the new mayor. She is not Rahm Emanuel. She inherited the debt for Rahm’s two terms of hostility to the city’s public schools and their teachers. Mike included this quote: Yesterday, the parent group, Raise Your Ha
In her Fast Forward news summary for the Boston Globe today, Teresa Hanafin writes: Today’s witness in the hot seat on Capitol Hill is Gordon Sondland, the hotelier who donated a million bucks to Trump’s inauguration and in exchange, got to be the US ambassador to the European Union. He’s neck-deep in the Ukraine mess because Trump pushed aside the experienced diplomats and tapped the naif Sondla
Peter Green e notes that Kentucky passed a charter law but has http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/10/ky-pushing-old-charter-myths-in-new.html so far wisely refused to fund them. Along comes a local marketing consultant to explain why charters are a great idea. Greene explains why charters are a very bad idea indeed. The arguments for charters are bogus, he shows. The marketing consultant say
After a long career as a journalist, Cathy Frye worked for the Walton-funded “Arkansas Public School Resource Center,” an organization funded by the Waltons to hoax rural school districts and suck them into the Waltons’ plan to eliminate public education in the state. She has been posting about what she learned as communications director for the APSRC during her three years in the organization. T
Randi Weingarten, who is both president of the American Federation of Teachers and a veteran lawyer, describes the AFT’s efforts to save the pensions and benefits and dignity of teachers in Puerto Rico as the Island faced bankruptcy and predatory lenders.
Rachel M. Cohen tells an important and powerful story of the time when Senator Bernie Sanders stood up to Teach for America. His efforts were ultimately defeated by Arne Duncan, Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado, and Eli Broad. In 2011, the Obama administration and TFA’s friends in Congress were eager to call the program’s inexperienced and ill-trained recruits “highly qualified,” to meet the r
A Corporate Reform group in Tennessee released its own poll claiming that most voters in the state approve of annual testing. The group called SCORE was created in 2009 by former Republican Senator Bill Frist to promote the Common Core State Standards. Being fast to accept CCSS before they were finished or even released put Tennessee in an advantageous spot for Race to the Top funding. The state
If you live anywhere near Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, I hope you will join me to hear Eve Ewing speak tonight, October 17, at Jewett Arts Center at 7:30 pm. Eve taught in the Chicago Public Schools, where teachers are going out on strike today. She is speaking tonight at Wellesley in an annual lecture series that I established a few years ago to bring some of the most important
The following story appeared in the Washington Post. Elijah Cummings was a man of conviction. We will miss him. Rep. Elijah Cummings, Democratic leader and regular Trump target, dies at 68 His office cites ‘complications concerning longstanding health challenges’ Elijah E. Cummings, a Democratic congressman from Maryland who gained national attention for his principled stands on politically charg
The Chicago Teachers Union announced that it would begin a strike on Thursday. Mayor Lori Lightfoot is paying the price for years of neglect under Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Mayor Richard Daley. Teachers in Chicago announced Wednesday evening that they would go on strike, forcing the cancellation of classes for more than 300,000 public school students in the nation’s third-largest district starting T
Trump announced his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and abandon our allies, the Kurds, on Putin’s birthday, October 7. Happy birthday, Vlad! From today’s New York Times: President Trump on Wednesday distanced the United States from the conflict between Turkey and America’s Kurdish allies in Syria, saying that the battle “has nothing to do with us” as he defended his decision to withdraw
Teresa Hanafin, who writes “Fast Forward” for the Boston Globe, posted the following: The latest in the impeachment inquiry, aka “Through the Looking-Glass.” Today congressional investigators hear from Michael McKinley, former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The career diplomat resigned last week, reportedly because of objections to how Ukraine policy was being handled. Yesterda
Politico reports that the Trump administration is apologizing profusely for hounding students whose loans for attending the predatory (now closed) Corinthian Colleges should have been forgiven. The judge in the case had threatened to punish Betsy DeVos for violating her court order. This is a case of “accountability for thee, but not for me.” MAKING THE CASE AGAINST CONTEMPT FINDING: The Trump ad
Bill Phillis, retired deputy superintendent of schools for the state of Ohio, finds it hard to believe that a state legislature would seize control of a school district and remove its elected school board from office. When did Republicans become diehard enemies of local control? It has become clear that the state has no ideas about how to help low-scoring districts. None. He writes: Never thought
The State Legislature and Governor in Ohio must be the dumbest in the nation. They responded to low test scores in Youngstown by imposing state control of the district. Needless to say, the state did not have a clue about how to improve the schools, so the state is now replacing the powerless elected local board with mayoral control. Jan Resseger writes here about this absurd turn of events. Offi
Heather Vogeli of ProPublica reports on property tax documents of Trump properties and reports some troubling discrepancies. The story begins: Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authoritie
James Hohmann of the Washington Post writes that Trump makes consequential decisions without consulting people who are deeply knowledgeable about the consequences. IDEA: President Trump tweeted last week about his own “great and unmatched wisdom” as he defended his controversial conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It was a window into his certitude and self-confidence that b
Teresa Hanafin of “Fast Forward” of the Boston Globe wrote the following: While you were sleeping: The BBC reported a stunning story about a British couple, their 3-month-old baby, and their relatives on vacation in Vancouver who accidentally crossed the border into the US back on Oct. 3. They were pulled over by a cop, arrested, separated, put in freezing cold cells at a detention center, and fo
Cathy Frye continues her tell-all report on working in a Walton-funded organization called the Arkansas Public School Resource Center. APSRC enlisted 85% of the state’s rural school districts with offers of help but its real purpose was to promote the Walton agenda of eliminating public schools and replacing them with private choices. In this post , she describes the hostile, sexist, secretive wo
Will Huntsberry of the Voice of San Diego has covered the scandals blighting California’s Charter Industry, especially the A3 online scandal, the largest in American history. In this article , he goes straight to the heart of the scandals: the flawed audit process. California lawmakers created a system that places just one process at the forefront of detecting fraud and mismanagement in the state
Two new charter schools in Utah have been warned that they may have to close by the end of the year, due to low enrollments. The Utah State Charter School Board voted Thursday morning to begin the process of closing two financially troubled charter schools. St. George Academy in Washington County and Capstone Classical Academy in Pleasant View are now on a watch list and have 14 days to ask for a
Jan Resseger is a profound thinker and a clear writer. I love reading what she writes. Jan is one of the Resistance leaders in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH: THE PASSIONATE RESISTANCE TO PRIVATIZATION AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS. In this post, she explains to Democratic candidates why they should not waffle in their support for public schools. Her explanation is a rallying cry fo
Charles Foster Johnson, executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, delivered a powerful lecture at Baylor University on the importance of public schooling. PTC has been an important advocate on behalf of public schools in several states. It has led the successful effort to block voucher legislation in Texas by forging a coalition of urban Democrats and rural Republicans. An account of the
Peter Greene took a look at New York City’s decision to go into a public-private partnership with well-known Corporate Reform groups and asked whether the Reformers were helping out or the City was selling out. After a fruitless pursuit of “innovation” for 20 years, Mayor DeBlasio has turned to two organizations that have no track record of success. He writes: Last week the de Blasio administrati
California is paying a high price for its notoriously lax law for authorizing charter schools, which was revised in recent weeks. Tom Ultican sees a striking similarity between the Inspire charter chain, which enrolls home schoolers, and the A3 chain, which went up in flames with a loss to taxpayers of at least $50 million. Inspire Charter School mirrors the methods of A3 Education. It employs pr
A new movie will be released in a few days, telling the story of the D.C. voucher program. The movie is called Miss Virginia, and the purpose of the movie is to persuade movie goers to love the idea of vouchers as a way to escape their”failing” public schools. This is a bit reminiscent of the movie called “Won’t Back Down,” that was supposed to sell the miracle of charter schools. It had two Holl
This is a very provocative post by Teacher Ken Bernstein, who blogs at Daily Kos. Ken has been teaching government for decades. When he muses about Trump, it’s worth reading.
Lots of executive time for watching FOX News and tweeting. Lunch with lackeys. Plenty of time for golf. His favorite lunch Partners: Pence and Pompeo. Will they discuss the slaughter of our Kurdish allies? Probably not. Not important to the Stable Genius, he with “unmatched wisdom.” SNEAK PEEK … THE PRESIDENT’S WEEK AHEAD … Tuesday: THE PRESIDENT will have lunch with VP Mike Pence and will meet w
This is a good time to teach the U.S. Constitution. Trump has often said that, as president, he can do whatever he wants. He believes he is above the law. He has said that Article 2 of the Constitution assures him complete immunity from any prosecution. In addition, his lawyers asserted in a case in New York that he cannot even be investigated for breaking the law, and that this immunity shields
This is a good time to teach the Constitution. Since we are in the midst of a historic impeachment proceeding, I have highlighted the sentences referring to impeachment. I am citing this source . Just yesterday, Trump threatened to sue Adam Schiff, chairman of the intelligence committee, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House , because he doesn’t think they have the right to impeach him or even t
Democrats in the House of Representatives have opened an impeachment inquiry because a whistleblower warned that the president offered to release $400 million in financial aid to Ukraine if its government investigated Joe and Hunter Biden. The whistleblower’s warning was verified when the White House released the contents of a conversation in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investig
The New York Times published a lengthy article about Bill Gates’ friendship with convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Gates visited Epstein’s lavish townhouse in Manhattan on several occasions. He hitched a ride on Epstein’s private jet. They engaged in lengthy discussions about philanthropy. All of this hobnobbing happened after Epstein was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a mino
Mercedes Schneider reports that the deluge of out-of-state money into the election of the state board of education was sufficient to elect a board amenable to the failed strategies of testing and choice. No fresh ideas to be expected from Louisiana. Just the same tired nostrums that were written into federal law nearly 20 years ago. Schneider wonders if the new board will reappoint State Superint
John Cassidy of The New Yorker wrote about the indictment and arrest of two men who were leaving the country with one-way tickets. Photographs of these men have been published showing them having a meeting at the White House with Trump and on another occasion, dining with Rudy G. at a Trump hotel and also a photo of them with Don Jr. Cassidy writes: What’s the most arresting detail that’s been un
Cathy Frye was a journalist for 21 years, then changed careers and eventually landed a job as communications director of a Walton-funded organization called the Arkansas Public Schools Resource Center (APSRC), which was actually a covert front for the school choice movement. I previously posted her Part 1 and Part 2 . In this post, she reveals more about the deceptive organization that existed to
How often have you learned something for a test, then promptly forgot it? One of the goals of education surely is to instill a love of learning and to build a foundation of knowledge that one can draw upon and increase in future learning. Steven Singer notes that a steady diet of standardized testing may actually undermine learning. He begins: The main goal of schooling is no longer learning. It
Bracey Harris writes in The Hechinger Report that teacher activism is making the governors’ races in red states competitive. This is great news. Paula Howard teaches in a Republican stronghold in north Mississippi, along the Tennessee border. She usually votes Republican and is closely following the campaign of Jerry Darnell, a Republican educator running to represent Howard’s home district in th
Two articles were published recently about a new book that makes the point that billionaires pay at a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans. The book is The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them
