Reader C.H. Rubinstein eases into the debate about GRIT. Oy, where have we heard this song & dance before? Grit is something your mom used to yell about, such as when you were playing outside, “Wipe your feet before you come in the house, or take your shoes off! Don’t get that grit all over my kitchen floor!” Or, as my sister would presently yell, “Who got the sink all grit-ty?! Clean it up NOW!!
Paul Waldman of the Washington Post went down memory lane with prominent Republicans who called out Trump as a phony before he was elected. On Friday, the president of the United States called in to the daily festival of idiocy that is “Fox & Friends,” where he blathered and rambled for an entire hour. He slandered people, repeated ludicrous conspiracy theories, told numerous lies, and devolved i
Audrey Watters begins each of her posts at HEWN with a description of a bird. Then she gets into the story, the story in this one being an “epistemic crisis,” a society where truth itself is doubted, experts are dismissed, and everyone is entitled to not only their own opinions but their own facts. I particularly recommend her links. I enjoyed the one about Mr. Rogers. It compels to think about o
Jan Resseger writes here about the damage that “portfolio districts” do to students, schools, and communities. The original concept for “portfolio districts” was developed by Paul Hill of the Gates-funded Center for Reinventing Public Educatuon at the University of Washington. The fundamental idea was that the school board would act like a stock portfolio manager, closing low-performing schools,
Carol Burris writes about the latest news from the charter industry. This is the same company that Valerie Strauss wrote about, called “Entertainment Properties Trust.” It’s CEO, Dennis Brain, told an interviewer that charter schools were a sound investment, had long waiting lists, and were guaranteed government revenues. But that rosy picture has dimmed. The long waiting lists are fictional. Cha
Back in 2012, Tennessee introduced its “Achievement School District” and hired YES Prep charter founder Chris Barbic to run it. The ASD was funded with $100 million from the state’s Race to the Top grant. Barbic said he would take the state’s lowest-performing public schools, hand them off to charter operators, and catapult them into the top 25% in the state within five years. Year after year, th
Teacher Steven Singer writes here about the protest at an Elizabeth Warren debate in Atlanta. He notes that a reporter for The Intercept, Ryan Grim, attended the rally and wrote that the protestors were funded by the Waltons, who have never shown any support for civil rights issues and are actively hostile to unions, which lift low-income workers out of poverty. He also quotes Intercept journalis
The Century Foundation is supposed to be a liberal foundation. I had numerous contacts with it when it was previously known as The Twentieth Century Fund. My most memorable experience involved my membership on a task force in 1983 or so, which prepared a critique of American education and the need for reform. For that era, our task force report was fairly run-of-the-mill. What was remarkable was
This story is probably behind a paywall . If it is not, you will enjoy reading it in full. Dana Milbank is one of my favorite opinion writers. He begins: But his emails! Gordon Sondland, Trump donor and Trump-picked U.S. ambassador to the European Union, apologized to impeachment investigators this week for failing to provide a more complete account of the president’s quids and quos with Ukraine:
Here is an excellent idea from the California Democratic Party: Charter schools should be governed by elected boards, just like real public schools. California is a bellwether for the nation. This strong stance shows that teachers are reclaiming their profession from billionaires and hedge fund managers. Edsource reports: Taking aim at the majority of charter schools in the state, the California
The Boston Globe published this opinion piece questioning the validity of concepts like grit and resilience. Author Alissa Quart interviews Christine White, a woman who grew up in extreme poverty yet managed to build a successful career helping people who struggled as she did. But not by coaching them to
