There was a time when Norh Carolina was widely seen as the most progressive stTe in the South. That time ended abruptly when the Tea Party took control of the state in 2010 and began to decimate public services, especially public education. The Tea Party introduced charters and vouchers, killed the state’s successful NC Teaching Fellows Program for career teachers (giving its funding to Teach for
Last June, blogger Michael Kohlhaas received a huge trove of documents from the Green Dot Charter Chain in response to his request filed under the state’s Public Record Act. He has been reviewing these documents and releasing them. In this post, he summarizes a Powerpoint presentation (and provides a link to the actual document) in which the California Charter Schools Association lays out its goa
Jan Resseger reports here on Stephen Dyer’s astute analysis of Ohio’s state budget. Dyer is a former legislator who is now an Education Policy Fellow at Innovation Ohio. This is Dyer’s report. Read it and weep. Ohio’s rightwing Republicans care more about campaign contributors than they care about the state’s students or the quality of education. In looking at the plums for charters and vouchers,
During the protests in Hong Kong, demonstrators carried placards of Timothy Snyder’s lessons about losing democracy. On Tyranny: the Road to Unfreedom Timothy Snyder – Yale University – Nov 15, 2016. Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here a
Register today for the Network for Public Education’s National Conference in March 2020 in Philadelphia. Today is the last day to get early bird discounted rate. Great speakers, great panels, and a chance to meet the leaders of the Resistance! Including you!
ProPublica documents that Trump has been proclaiming his interest in the Ukraine investigation on Twitter for months. Why are we surprised when he has told the story out loud for months ? Conspiracy theorists convinced him long ago that Ukraine—not Russia—interfered in the 2016 election, to aid the hated Hillary. He also telegraphed his belief that Ukraine leaked damaging information about Paul M
Andrea Gabor wrote this article for Bloomberg News. Andrea Gabor, a former editor at Business Week and U.S. News & World Report, is the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York and the author of “After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform.” The College Board, which administers college entrance exams to high school st
The charter Industry faction on the Los Angeles School Board wants to introduce a Jeb Bush-style evaluation system to rank and rate schools. It hasn’t worked anywhere else in the nation, so why not introduce it in Los Angeles. Every other state has demonstrated that the school grading system ranks schools by the income of parents. Schools that enroll the poorest children get the lowest grades. Sc
John Thompson is a historians and recently retired teacher in Oklahoma. For more than two decades I’ve mourned the loss of opportunities for online instruction to augment and enhance student learning, as opposed enabling a Social Darwinian competition where charters attack traditional public schools. Educators seeking meaningful choices, such as real personalized learning, have been shackled by t
Peter Greene recognizes the RAND Institution’s adroit use of the Reformy vocabulary in its latest report. Almost all your favorite jargon and buzzwords are found there, he says. Check it out and see if they overlooked any of your favorite buzzwords. RAND Corporation, with its vision to be “the world’s mos
