Pennsylvania Governor Sets Out To Fix “Worst Charter School Laws” In Nation It was Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale who four years ago deemed Pennsylvania’s charter school law the “worst in the United States,” but it may be Governor Tom Wolf who takes a first step toward fixing it. The law is over two decades old, and after letting that sleeping dog continue to lie for the first pa
Blue Serials (2/8/20) - Social Media Edition Happy chocolate-covered stuff! I suppose this is – by default – the Valentine’s Day Edition of Blue Serials this month. I’ll be honest. This is NOT one of my favorite holidays. It seems contrived and completely driven by guilt, expectations, and consumerism. It also makes it REALLY hard to get into any decent restaurants for several days before and af
Betsy DeVos' approval rating is 28% as voters back investigations into student debt scandal: poll After gutting loan forgiveness programs, DeVos is the most unpopular Trump administration official in a new poll A majority of voters support congressional investigations into Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' handling of student debt programs, according to the results of a new poll, which exposes
There Are No Bernie Bros, Just Diverse Supporters Being Made Into What They’re Not It’s time to call the whole “Bernie Bros” phenomenon exactly what it is – racist, sexist, homophobic propaganda. I don’t mean that Bernie Sanders’ supporters are any of those things. I mean that the term used to lump us all together is. There is no monolithic group of angry straight men backing the Vermont Senator
The inconvenient truth about charter ‘success’: They weed out students; traditional public schools must teach all Cheerleaders for New York City’s charter school sector typically trumpet the academic achievements of charter school students. But there is an inconvenient truth about these schools that charter supporters rarely discuss, or even admit. The schools’ “success” is due not to any superi
The Last Time Democracy Almost Died (Jill Lepore) With the rise of dictatorships across Europe and Asia in the past quarter-century, the current impeachment and then acquittal of President Donald Trump, fear, anger, and despair about the present state of America and its future as a democracy has become a topic of discussion. Recent books entitled How Democracies Die and The People Vs. Democracy
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Appoints Dr. Mao Vang as Director of the Assessment Development and Administration Division SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced today that he has appointed Dr. Mao Vang as the new Director for the Assessment Development and Administration Division (ADAD) at the California Department of Education (CDE). The division mana
NO GLOVE LEFT BEHIND, Season 2 I made a huge mistake last year when I waited until the beginning of April to introduce my campaign to match lost gloves and deliver them to the gloveless. What I am now calling “ No Glove Left Behind ” is now running at full speed when it’s most needed, during the harsh months of winter. I’m writing to enlist your help. Whenever I walk the streets of New York City
NewBlackMan (in Exile) Left of Black S10:E9: LaKisha Simmons and Black Girls Studies by Mark Anthony Neal / 4d Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan) is joined in the studio by Dr. LaKisha Simmons (@ProfLSimmons), an associate professor of history and women’s studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Crescent City Girls: The Lives of Young Black Women in Segregated
Education Research Report THIS WEEK Education Research Report Danger of prolonged sitting in classrooms recognized by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h In many workplaces, standing desks and walking meetings are addressing the health dangers of sitting too long each day, but for universities, the natural question is how to make such adjustments for classrooms. The question appealed to emerita dance profe
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 This Week With Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 A Look Back: “The Office” Teaches Why Extrinsic Motivation Doesn’t Work by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best pos
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all Slaying Goliath The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools CLICK HERE TO Order NOW Nancy Bailey: Why Do Districts Buy This Reading Program? by dianeravitch / 6min Nancy Bailey features a post about a
Anger at OUSD The school district says Oakland has far too many schools for a city of its size. But efforts to redirect some resources into other priorities are drawing fire. A small group of angry parents, students, and teachers gathered outside Oakland Technical High School last Thursday to denounce the closing and merging of schools, and to publicize a signature-gathering campaign to recall c
American Federation of Teachers: Three Years of Betsy DeVos Has Been Bad for Education In this op-ed, members of the American Federation of Teachers explain how their union views the tenure of Education Secretary Besty DeVos on the anniversary of her 2017 confirmation. Betsy DeVos has been the Secretary of Education for three years, making her one of President Donald Trump’s longest-serving Cabi
NY: Police State High School Is On Line A while back, I wrote about Lockport, NY, where for some damn reason, school officials had decided that what the district really needed was facial recognition software watching the students . As with most expansions of the surveillance state, the excuse was the ol d "This is for your own good." Facial recognition and tracking software will add an unprecede
PRIVATIZING OAKLAND SCHOOLS Eli Broad (rhymes with “toad”) conconcted a scheme to privatize Oakland’s public schools and produce a revenue stream for his billionaire cronies. “ Operating unethically and illegally, Broad managers used their training to cripple and plunder Oakland’s schools.” Eli Broad is a liberal Democrat. He opposes Trump’s Muslim ban, immigration policies and withdrawal from t
Call Me a Hippie, but I Still Believe Love Can Change the World Watching recent coverage on the impeachment trial and subsequent acquittal makes me miss my mom and dad. At times like this, I wish could have their help in processing all that is currently going on in our country. My parents met during the civil rights protests of the mid 60’s and 70’s, at a time when our country was facing a simil
NCTQ on States’ Teacher Evaluation Systems’ Failures, Again n February of 2017, the controversial National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) — created by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and funded (in part) by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as “part of a coalition for ‘a better orchestrated agenda’ for accountability, choice, and using test scores to drive the evaluation of tea
The good news: Sacramento City schools might not go broke after all. Just make a deal. Sacramento is actually closer to saving its public school system than it has been in years. For this unexpected development, Assemblyman Kevin McCarty deserves a great deal of credit. Long known as a close friend to the state teachers union – he takes a lot of money from them – it was McCarty who asked state a
National Education Policy Center: The Dangerous Case of Espinoza v. Montana, Now Before the US Supreme Court The future of public education hangs in the balance. The US Supreme Court has shifted far to the right, with the addition of religious zealots Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The case, Espinoza v. Montana, would permit them to eliminate the line of separations between church and state,
Me and Limbaugh, Ohio 2012 So DT got Melania to give racist oinker Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor. It's one that was awarded in earlier, less bizarro-world times to the likes of Mother Theresa and Rosa Parks ( BTW, happy birthday to Mrs. Parks on her 110th). That's at least two former winners a-mouldering in their graves. Nothing he does shocks me anymor
Ohio House Passes Emergency Amendment Which Would Solve Some EdChoice Voucher Problems Ohio’s House Speaker Larry Householder is leading his chamber expeditiously to address the crisis over school vouchers which emerged last weekend, when negotiations between the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House entirely broke down over the state’s EdChoice voucher program. The Ohio House passed an emergency amend
The Bronx's Revival Shows Why Sanctuary for Immigrants is Sound Policy From the early 1970’s, when an arson and abandonment cycle destroyed almost a quarter of the Bronx’s housing stock, through the Crack Epidemic of the late 80’s and early 90’s, which caused the borough’s murder rates to soar, the Bronx served as a cautionary tale for everyone seeking to explain what went wrong in the nations
Two CA-30 Congressional Candidates Answer Questions About Federal Education Policy I will introduce or support legislation that addresses the issue of underfunding IDEA through reforming allocation, funding and distribution mechanisms of resources to public schools” – CJ Berina The last time incumbent Brad Sherman had to run in a competitive race he physically assaulted his opponent on the debat
PA: DeVos Stumps For Trump, Masters Lying So this is apparently the school choice lie that Trumpists are going to lean on: “They want government control of everything — your health care, your wallet, your child’s education,” DeVos said. Democrats “want complete control over where, how, and what American students learn,” she said. “ They want to close every charter school , take away every educat
Schools and Classrooms a Century Ago Here are photos of schools and classrooms from the 1920s in cities and rural districts. While there are now 13,000-plus districts in the U.S. now, a century ago, there were over 100,000. Rural consolidation of schools and migration to cities during the Great Depression and especially after World War II reduced dramatically the number of one-room school houses
Congress: Don’t forget public schools in infrastructure plan By Amanda Menas / Photo: NEA President Lily Eskelsen GarcÃa makes the case for rebuilding schools at an event on Capitol Hill last year. Decaying school buildings and lack of up-to-date technology are a reality for millions of students and educators across the nation. Half of America’s public schools are more than 50 years old , and ca
WHAT OUR WHITE COLLEAGUES NEED TO UNDERSTAND: WHITE SUPREMACY DOESN’T STOP AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE DOOR As educators doing antiracism work, we often focus extensively on the impact that white supremacy has on students. But even though we recognize that white supremacy shapes all of our lives and work, we spend little time talking about its impact on educators. For the past three years, we’ve worked a
The Soft Bigotry of Hard Grading Whoever wrote the phrase ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’ back in the early days of the Bush administration, was a genius. In one nifty sound bite, the blame for the so-called achievement gap was placed squarely on the shoulders of educators, those barrel-bottom, unimaginative civil servants slogging along in low-paying careers. Not only were veteran teachers u
Racing to Nowhere: Ways Teacher Evaluation Reform Devalues Teachers In a recent blog (see here ), I posted about a teacher evaluation brief written by Alyson Lavigne and Thomas Good for Division 15 of the American Psychological Association (see here ). There, Lavigne and Good voiced their concerns about inadequate teacher evaluation practices that did not help teachers improve instruction, and t
Milton Friedman’s Day in Court The raging debate about whether public money should fund private religious education is a very old one. What’s new is the increasingly complex education landscape and the mainstreaming of once radical free market ideas. Education historian Ethan Hutt helps us make sense of the recent Supreme Court case, Montana vs. Espinoza and what’s next for the school choice war
Our Community, Our Children and Education Equity: What the Data Reveals The persistent disparity in the academic achievement of students from different socio-economic, racial and ethnic backgrounds based on the results of various research studies examining the standardized and school level test results of students in the United States has been reported extensively. As we welcome the year 2020, i
About Those “Failing-Government” Schools In promoting US ed sec Betsy DeVos’ pet project of private school vouchers during his February 04, 2020, State of the Union address, President Donald Trump used a far-right, DeVosian description of America’s public schools as “failing government schools.” Never mind that Trump heads the government and that DeVos heads those “government schools.” What is n
Gov. Wolf Proposes Saving $280 Million a Year in PA With Charter School Reform Charter schools waste taxpayer money . Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf proposes we stop wasting that money by holding charter schools as accountable as the state’s authentic public schools. The Democratic governor made his most recent proposal yesterday as part of his 2020-21 budget address. It’s a common sense proposal th
| A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes FAQ for parents and teachers on Regents “exit exams” and why they should be eliminated The Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department are re-examining the use of Regents “exit exams” as a requirement for high school graduation, and are holding a series of regional public sessions to gather
Trumpublicans and the Gotcha Politics of the Right This is now the third installment that frames the presidency of Trump as a real-life Harrison Bergeron, the often misread totalitarian clown in Kurt Vonnegut’s eponymous dystopian short story. For the U.S., February 4, 2020, now stands as the peak moment of converting the Republican Party into the Trumpublican Party. No longer are we citizens of
Eli Broad Goes To Yale This ran over at Forbes back in early December, and in the Christmas rush I just forgot to port it over here to the mother ship for those of you who don't read me at Forbes. So it's not fresh, shiny news-- but it still matters. Billionaire Eli Broad has long worked to impose business solutions on U.S. education, believing that education has a management problem, not an edu
Last Week, Water. This Week, AIR. (The Series Continues) Last week in this space I recommended studying one of life’s essentials, the water we drink. I also endorsed project-based learning because it demands that students become producers of knowledge, not mere regurgitators of canned information. A number of readers asked for more, and so here’s a second recommendation: let’s study the air that
The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen The Science of Reading Plot to Replace Reading Teachers with Phonics on a Screen Not only are school districts spending huge sums on laptops with little research to indicate students learn better on computers, they’re also pushing children to face screens to learn the most serious subject, how to read. They’re doing
FAQ for parents and teachers on Regents "exit exams" and why they should be eliminated The Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department are re-examining the use of Regents "exit exams" as a requirement for high school graduation, and are holding a series of regional public sessions to gather input from parents, teachers and other stakeholders before making any changes to the curr
Waste and Failure in Cyber Charter Schools | Dissident Voice Waste and Failure in Cyber Charter Schools While waste, corruption, and failure have plagued the segregated and nontransparent charter school sector for decades, privately-operated-owned cyber charter schools, even by the admission of the most dogmatic supporters of charter schools, are the worst of the worst. The academic performance o
Dress codes are the new ‘whites only’ signs How else to interpret the policing and controlling of black bodies? E ver since enslaved blacks arrived on the shores of the English colony of Virginia in 1619 , white legislators at various levels of government have designed laws to explicitly control and suppress black people. In 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court decided that black
Graduation Requirements: Should We Move the Bar Upwards? Occasionally at the end of a class when a kid was leaving room s/he would say, “Gee Mr. G; that was really hard.” I smiled; I knew I was doing my job. I knew if students came to my class every day, and stayed engaged, the Regents Examination would be a breeze. In my first period class I would bring a box of donut holes, enough for half the
Harvard Propaganda Supports Mind Trust Madness By Thomas Ultican 2/4/2020 Ivy League schools are losing their luster to the stranglehold of billionaire money. The Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School produces Education Next . It is not the kind of objective journal expected from an academic institution. Influenced by super-wealthy people like Bill Gates and th
The Challengers In The CA-29 Congressional Race Answer Questions About Federal Education Policy We believe that quality education is a human right.” – Angelica Duenas Barring a cataclysmic event, Tony Cárdenas’ “solid Democratic” seat in the United States House of Representatives is safe. A lawsuit was filed on April 27, 2018, which “ alleged that Cárdenas sexually abused a 16-year-old girl in 2
2020 Medley #4: Vouchers, choice, and the misuse of tax dollars School choice fails, Students give up rights, Tax dollars for discrimination, Choice and segregation, Pilot “choice” programs are a trap “…to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical…” — Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Fr
Wisconsin Gave DeVos and Pence the Cold Shoulder for “School Choice Week”! Sorry to have missed this great story when Jan Resseger posted it. i happened to have been down and out with the flu. This is a story I wish I could include in SLAYING GOLIATH. The perpetrators returned to the scene of their crime and are shunned! Jan Resseger writes: Wisconsin and Ohio have the oldest school choice progr
RAND Study Affirms the Importance of Ameliorating Family Poverty as a School Reform Strategy New research from the RAND Corporation confirms that Community Schools—schools with wraparound social, medical, and enrichment services right in the school building—support children’s well being and enhance their engagement and progress at school. The Washington Po st’s Laura Meckler describes RAND’s new
Post Editorial Board Full of Racist Scumbags I don't know who writes NY Post editorials, but this one is particularly disturbing to me. Ostensibly, it's about one of many corrupt, hypocritical administrators. I have no issue with that. Bad administration is a plague here in NYC and needs to be rooted out at the source. The source, incidentally, is largely Michael Bloomberg, who established a Lea
Cheryl Ortega for UTLA Director of Bilingual Education Maestros Unidos Los Angeles con Oaxaca Cheryl Ortega’s tireless advocacy and effective activism for students and bilingual education stems from her years of dedication to the same. There is no better choice for United Teachers of Los Angeles’ (UTLA) Director of Bilingual Education. Her vast experience, institutional knowledge, and devotion t
Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » PISA Peculiarities (4): High Test Scores, Low Life Satisfaction PISA Peculiarities (4): High Test Scores, Low Life Satisfaction PISA has many peculiar and surprising discoveries… PISA wants to offer advice on anything and everything considered important to students in the world so it has decided to jump on the bandwagon of student well being.
A ROOM IS ENOUGH I should have known the minute my students tried to reroute me from my classroom. It was my first year of teaching. At the time, someone might hand you a box of chalk and a contract to read, but the rest of the rules you learn by breaking them. I learned, for example, that bulletin boards need to be updated every month, have a rubric and an exemplar on them, and display a small
Tapping private money to build schools is playing with fire Sometimes being the first to do something isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Remember Friendster, the original Facebook? It shuttered in 2015 after years of obscurity. Back in 2003, its founders refused $30 million in Google stock, which would be worth a billion dollars today. Stamford, Conn., is considering becoming the first jurisdictio
I Shot An Arrow Into The Air I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; -- " The Arrow and the Song " Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Rick Hess recently wrote an EdWeek post offering f our insights about education policymaking , and as if often the case with Hess, I started to write a reply in the comments section and then it got too long and so here I am. Here's a quick recap
Black Teachers Matter: End war on Black teachers, support #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool! Listen to this special episode of the CTU Speaks! Podcast about stopping the war on Black teachers and supporting the Black Lives Matter at School movement! Happy Black Lives Matter at School week of action to you! During this week of February 3-7, 2020, thousands of educators across the nation will be teaching
Enter to Win Schott Board Chair Jackie Jenkins-Scott's New Book on Responsive Leadership We’re excited to announce the publication of a book by Schott Board Chair Jackie Jenkins-Scott, The 7 Secrets of Responsive Leadership . Schott has benefited tremendously from Jackie’s strategic savvy, insights, and dynamic leadership. This book an asset for other organizations and leaders. Enter by February
Dallas And Tulsa: A Tale of Two Blockchains A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel to Dallas and Tulsa, connect in person with friends and research collaborators, see local sites of “social entrepreneurship,” and meet others who are developing strategies to fight the coming tide of predatory “human capital investment.” For important background on the disruption that is overtaking Tulsa,
DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? A site to discuss better education for all Trump Will Promote Ted Cruz’s Voucher Plan by dianeravitch / 27min The Houston Chronicle reports that Trump will promote Ted Cruz’s school voucher plan, which aligns nicely with the DeVos “Education Freedom” vouchers. Texas does not have vouchers, thanks to the concerted efforts of Pastors for Texas Children and
How Bernie Sanders Became Teachers’ Favorite Candidate Far more teachers are donating to the Vermont senator than any other presidential candidate, new data shows. Katie Nash has been a fan of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) since she saw him speak at a local political rally in the lead up to the 2016 election, but she was careful not to get her hopes up. Though his worldview aligned with hers, she
Calling All Educators: Sign the #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool pledge today! – Black Lives Matter At School Calling All Educators: Sign the #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool pledge today! On Monday, February 3, 2020, the third national Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action begins in schools all across the country. Educators will be teaching lessons about the 13 principles of the Black Lives Matter Globa
Dogged Dilemmas in U.S. Classrooms Over the past ten years I have blogged, I have written often about dilemmas facing teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board members. These dilemmas (as distinguished from “problems”) have to be managed since they cannot be “solved.” That distinction goes against the cultural belief that Americans are “problem-solvers” who can–often through techno
Indianapolis: The Resistance Is Fighting the Well-Funded Disruptors Professor Jim Scheurich read a recent article in the rightwing, anti-public school journal “Education Next” about Indianapolis, which he thought was fundamentally flawed. He sent the following analysis of what’s really happening in Indianapolis: A RECENT ARTICLE IN EDUCATION NEXT COMPLETELY MISREPRESENTS THE RECENT HISTORY OF IN
USED Pitches Privatization To Wyoming Mitchell Zais , Deputy Secretary of Education, last week visited Wyoming to stump for school choice . He wrote for the Wyoming Parent his version of the department's sales pitch for Betsy DeVos's Education Freedom vouchery program. Wyoming parents (and taxpayers), this is a bit of a snow job. Let me explain. He opens by recognizing that humans are individual
NYC Educator: Green Eggs and Billionaires I do not like this Bloomberg guy, I do not like to hear him lie. I heard him say he fixed the schools, I think he takes us all for fools. I heard he bought the DNC. So that in the debates he'd be, I read that so he'd get his way, He paid them just 300K. From city teachers he'll get jeers, That bastard tortured us for years, He moved the kids and closed t
Choosing Democracy: CA's Fair Funding Formula Makes More Possible for Schools CA's Fair Funding Formula Makes More Possible for Schools Note; LCFF is not currently serving Sacramento City Unified students well. Here is the LULAC (Sacramento) demand. Legal Services Department, Sacramento City Unified School District Jan. 29, 2020 We are submitting this request pursuant to the California Public Rec
Would You Trust LAUSD Candidate Marilyn Koziatek To Hold On To Your Wallet? Also, the fiscal transparency of the district is vital ” – Marilyn Koziatek Even before starting its expansion into TK through 8th grade , Granada Hills Charter High School had more students than 86% of all school districts nationwide. However, unlike most school districts, the community that finances the school does not
Big Education Ape: David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Pluck vs. Luck In one way, ground zero for the “science of reading” movement can be traced to Emily Hanford in 2018 , but cognitive scientists ( Daniel Willingham and Mark Seidenberg , for example) focusing on reading and advocacy for students with dyslexia (or struggling to read in ways that some label as dyslexia) have also p
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Pluck vs. Luck This post is a piece I recently published in Aeon. Here’s the link to the original . I wrote this after years of futile efforts to get Stanford students to think critically about how they got to their current location at the top of the meritocracy. It was nearly impossible to get students to consider that their path to Palo Alto mi
For Your Browsing Pleasure: Who Got Walton Money for Education Disruption in 2018? The Walton Family Foundation is the fruit of the Walmart chain. It was created by the Waltons, one of the richest families in the world. The three senior members of the Walton family–Alice Walton, Jim Walton, and Rob Walton–have a collective net worth in excess of $150 billion. There is a younger generation of Wal
Los Angeles: Defeat the Charter Combine! Jackie Goldberg, the dynamic progressive on the Los Angeles school board, send this request for help: FROM THE DESK OF JACKIE GOLDBERG Dear Friends and Family, First, I cannot thank each and every one of you enough for all you’ve done to support me over so many years. And I have another personal request for each of you because you are all important in the
This election is off-limits to voters. But the results will matter a lot to L.A. school families One ballot this season is off-limits to the public but carries far-reaching ramifications for hundreds of thousands of youths and their families — the election of a new president and other officers for the Los Angeles teachers union. United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl, who led 30
Dallas: Charter Operator Sentenced to 7 Years, Then Claims Bonus The charter industry is overrun with scandals because charter laws do not require accountability and transparency. Theft, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and fraud are a feature, not a bug. A charter operator in Dallas was sentenced to seven years in jail for taking a kickback , but then convinced the board to give her a bonus of
Fracking has led to a "bust" for Pennsylvania school district finances Fracking in Pennsylvania has led to disadvantages in state school districts. Unconventional natural gas development has transformed American energy over the past decade . Hydraulic fracturing , often popularly referred to as "fracking," is a process used in extracting oil or gas resources from underground formations such as s
Florida: 2 Big Banks Abandon Florida’s Voucher Program Due to Anti-LGBT Policies A free press makes a difference. Here is proof. On January 23, Leslie Postal and Annie Martin of the Orlando Sentinel wrote that nearly 160 religious schools receiving vouchers from the state of Florida openly discriminate against students, families, and staff who are gay. Voucher schools drain $1 billion away from
EdChoice Voucher Negotiations Break Down in Ohio: Four Questions Must Be Addressed in 60-Day Delay Rancor and confusion over the issue of EdChoice private school tuition vouchers filled the chambers of the Ohio Legislature all last week. In anticipation of the February 1st date when families were supposed to start signing up for vouchers for next school year, the Legislature set out to address p
CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Sportsball Sunday Edition (2/2) Sportsball Sunday Edition (2/2) Human beings are funny creatures. Today we'll celebrate the prognostication of a giant rodent, invest a gazillion dollars in a sportsball contest, and get all excited because our date-labeling system will cough up a palindrome today (spoiler alert: every date-- every last one-- only comes around once). But in t
A Podcast at Books and Books in Miami The first stop on my national book tour was Books and Books, a wonderful old-fashioned independent bookstore in Coral Gables in Florida. I talked with Mitchell Kaplan, the owner, who is determined to keep the literary life alive. This is our discussion. After the podcast, I met with the leadership of the United Teachers of Dade County. My presentation at the
NYC Schools are Segregated New York City schools are segregated. That is context. I am not writing about how they became segregated, or how segregated they are (very). I am reminding us, all of us, of the context. The Chancellor’s proposal to integrate the specialized high schools was rolled out poorly. He caught allies off-guard. He angered opponents. State Senators (including mine) blasted him
EdAction in Congress February 2, 2020 Infrastructure package needs to do more for schools House Democrats unveiled a $760 billion infrastructure package that would improve roads, bridges, and transit systems, among other things. When asked, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said school modernization also needed to happen this year. But timing is unclear, so we need to make sure Congress knows schools
PROGRESSIVES HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS, EXCEPT FOR HOW TO PROVIDE EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE I’ve had the chance to travel a lot in my work as an educator and activist, and frequently I find myself in what I call the “too-expensive-for-Black folks” cities. You know, those cities that present themselves as magnets for change and opportunity, but when you look past the facade (my friend and colleague Chris St
Those Christian Textbooks Adopted in Schools That Receive Taxpayer Funding In 2017, the Orlando Sentinel published a powerful three-part series about unregulated and unaccountable voucher schools in Florida, called “Schools Without Rules.” In Florida, voucher schools receive $1 billion each year of taxpayer funding. In 2018, the Orlando Sentinel published an article about the textbook companies
More students are learning on laptops and tablets in class. Some parents want to hit the off switch. Meaghan Edwards had just finished reading children’s books to her son’s third-grade class when the teacher announced that students could have free time before lunch. Instead of playing cards, talking with friends or reading more, the students pulled out their iPads. “They were zoned out like litt
Why Does Ohio Award Bonuses to Failing Charter Schools? Ohio is extraordinarily generous to religious schools and charter schools. It even awards bonuses to failing charters schools! Under current state law, millions of dollars will flow to failing charters. Ohio’s charter industry is drawing money away from real public schools, and most charters perform worse than real public schools. So now th
Limiting Suspensions Is a Slippery Slope I like State Senator Jessica Ramos. I'm glad she's working for us. This notwithstanding, I wonder about the bill she's pushing to limit school suspensions. According to the article, suspensions can be up to 180 days. I know this is true, and I know of a few students who committed outright atrocities who received yearlong suspensions. I won't go into what
IT’S THE THIRTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG – HERE ARE THE FORTY ALL-TIME MOST POPULAR POSTS Yes, this blog has been around for thirteen years! Lots of numbers – fourteen million visitors, twenty-three thousand daily readers , thirteen books . But the real celebration for me is what I have learned through the process and how it has made me a better teacher. It has been a great experience, and I
The Ongoing Study of How and When Teachers Should Praise Students Should teachers praise their students? It’s a simple question with a multiplicity of answers. A 2020 study published in the journal Educational Psychology concludes that teachers who use praise see a 30% increase in good behavior from their classes. Meanwhile, reprimands actually increase misbehavior and unwillingness to comply wi
FEB 13: SCHOOL FACILITIES, ENROLLMENT, AND EQUITY The next Education Town Hall focuses on facilities and neighborhood issues around a Ward 8 charter school and the citywide auditor’s report on enrollment and equity in DC schools. Listen at 11 a.m. EASTERN on Thursday, February 13, via TuneIn or by visiting We Act Radio and clicking on arrow at upper left (NOTE: Not all “listen” buttons are worki
Big Education Ape TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 2/1/20 ‘Slaying Goliath’: Diane Ravitch argues in new book that public education advocates have beat back efforts to privatize schools - The Washington Post The real story of New
