Cancel the Spring Tests! Sign the NPE Petition Here!During the campaign, Joe Biden promised to stop standardized testing. He acknowledged the damage it does to children and education. Please sign the petition to remind him of his promise. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/secretary-cardona-cancel-the-tests/?link_id=0&can_id=481aa792da2a79ba2a38c6faa410b9f1&source=email-secretary-cardona-cancel-the-spring-tests&email_referrer=email_1054634&email_
The Neo-Nazi Next DoorGwen Frisbie-Fulton writes here about her neighbors , who were white supremacists. She moved away so her son would not be exposed to their hatefulness. There were ten thousand personal reasons why I packed up that house and sold it, but there was also one troublesome thing that had been on my mind. A few years earlier the Vinlanders — a white power hate group — had set up a clubhouse only a few b
Julian Vasquez Heilig Schools Jonathan Chait about ChartersThis post was originally published on January 6. The day turned into a full-scale riot as Trump urged his devoted followers to march on the Capitol. They did, they invaded it, they vandalized it, they went looking for legislators and the Vice-President with murderous intent. We narrowly averted a coup that day, and thank God, none of our legislators were killed, though several of them feared for
Why the District of Columbia Should Gain StatehoodChris Myers Asch grew up in D.C. His mother still lives there. He now lives in Maine and he urges his senators in Maine to support statehood for D.C. In this column, published in the Maine Press Herald, he explains why the District should gain statehood and why the residents of the District should have the right to vote. Asch teaches at Colby College and is the author of Chocolate City: A History
Study: Weakening Unions Increases Gender Gap in WagesBarbara Biasi, assistant professor of economics at the Yale School of Management, recently published a study that concluded that eliminating unions increases the gender gap in wages. She looked at data from Wisconsin, before and after Scott Walker eliminated collective bargaining rights in 2011, in his Koch-funded effort to destroy unions. For every dollar earned by men in the U.S., women earn ab
Breaking News! New York State Asks Feds for Testing Waiver for This Spring!New York State education officials have agreed to request a waiver from the Secretary of Education from federally mandated testing this spring, due to the pandemic. State officials recognize that the pandemic has caused gross inequities in opportunity to learn and would serve no useful purpose. (Under normal circumstances the federally required tests serve no useful purpose, but they are a terrib
Emiliana Dore: Charter Schools Are Not the Answer!Emiliana Dore wrote a powerful article at Medium about the importance of public schools and why charter schools do not promote racial or social justice. Her article was posted by Carl J. Petersen, a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles. Dore, a public school parent and advocate, wrote in response to an article at The 74 contending that charter schools were models for teaching kindnes
Arthur Camins: Time for Democrats to Divorce the “Bipartisan” Education Policy AgendaArthur Camins calls on the Democratic Party to divorce the “bipartisan” education policy agenda that has been in place for the past four decades. This is the agenda of competition, testing, accountability, and choice. It actually was the Republican policy agenda first, and the Democrats decided to embrace it. What did the Democrats give up when they endorsed the Republican education agenda? Democ
John Thompson: A Hilarious Novel about Life in the Classroom TodayWho knew that “adequate yearly progress” and “accountability” could be the subject of a comic novel? John Thompson just read that novel and he reviews it here. Roxanna Elden’s Adequate Yearly Progress is a hilarious, satirical novel that nails the very serious truths about the real world effects of corporate school reform. Although Elden’s humor spectacularly illuminates the reformers’ often-absu
Dr. Bandy X. Lee and the “Goldwater Rule”In the past four years, we have often been warned that we must not try to decipher Trump’s mental state because it would violate the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater Rule.” This is a rule that was adopted in
