House Democrats Want to Bar Federal Funding of For-Profit Charter Schools, and Charter Lobby Goes WildThe federal government has handed out billions of dollars to start new charter schools. The federal Charter Schools Program program started small, in 1994, with less than $10 million. At that time, based on hope, not evidence, charter schools, it was believed, would be more innovative, more accountable, and better than district public schools. Twenty-six years later, we know more, and we know tha
Nina Rees on Efforts to Reduce Funding for Charter Schools | C-SPAN.orgNational Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ Nina Rees talked about congressional efforts to reduce federal funding of charter schools. — Watch on www.c-span.org/video/ House Democrats want to ban for-profit charter management organizations, as Biden promised. Rees thinks this is terrible. CSPAN quotes the NPE report on for-profit EMOs (Chartered for Profit). Listen to call-ins at the end, which
A Proposal to Revive the Federal Writers’ ProjectDuring the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration devised highly successful programs to create jobs and at the same time, perform useful public works, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put young men to work, with a salary, food, and shelter while they performed manual labor related to the conservation of natural resources in rural lands owned by governments. Anot
Chris Lubienski: The Deceptive Language of School ChoiceChris Lubienski is a professor of education policy at Indiana University. He wrote recently with Amanda Potterton and Joe Malin about the deceptive rhetoric of school choice rhetoric. Thirty years ago, the school choice movement boasted that charters and vouchers would “save poor children from failing public schools.” They claimed that private schools outperform public schools. Now we know that s
North Carolina: The Racism Behind the State Statute Barring DiscriminatuonThe North Carolina General Assembly is considering legislation that ostensibly bans discrimination in the state’s classrooms. But the real purpose of the statute is to ban discussions of racism. Among other things, it prohibits teaching anything that might cause students to feel “discomfort,” and it prohibits diversity training. The bill begins: A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT TO DEMONSTRATE THE GEN
White Evangelicals Want to Destroy the Public SchoolsKatherine Stewart’s new book The Power Worshippers describes the hostility of evangelical Christians to public schools. I reviewed her book along with two others in the New York Review of Books. One of the most interesting insights in her book is that white evangelicals at first tried to mobilize public opinion to protect the tax-exempt status of segregated private schools and universities. When
Paul Butler: UNC’s Treatment of Nikole Hannah-Jones Was a Demonstration of CRTPaul Butler is a professor at the Georgetown University School of Law. In the Washington Post, where he is a contributing columnist, he w rites that the disparate treatment of Nikole Hannah-Jones illustrates critical race theory. A t the heart of CRT is the belief that systemic racism persists, despite legislative and judicial actions to banish it. According to some leading critical race theorist
“Bill Gates Should Stop Telling Africans What Kind of Agriculture Africans Need”Writing in Scientific American, Million Belay and Beatrice Mugambe complain that the Gates Foundatuon is steering African agriculture in the wrong direction. Financed by Gates, the Cornell Alliance for Science is promoting the use of genetically-modified seeds, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, petroleum-dependent machinery and artificial irrigation. The authors defend “agroecology,” which th
Sean Hannity: Get Vaccinated!Sean Hannity said on FOX last night : MONOLOGUE OF THE NIGHT — Fox News host SEAN HANNITY urged his viewers Monday night to “please take Covid seriously. I can’t say it enough. Enough people have died. We don’t need any more death. Research like crazy. Talk to your doctor. … I believe in science. I believe in the science of vaccination.” The clip When will Tucker Carlson speak up? I bet he is alr
Thomas B. Edsall: Is Education No Longer the Great Equalizer?This article by the political journalist Thomas B. Edsall appeared in the New York Times. I don’t think the title of the original (used here) is accurate or fair. The points I take from the article are 1) when almost everyone has a high school diploma, there is little or no benefit to having one although there is a huge penalty for not having one; 2) the more advanced education one has, the great
Axios: GOP States Enacting Laws to Prevent Discrimination Against the UnvaccinatedCaitlin Owens of Axios writes that Republican-controlled states are considering or have enacted laws that ban discrimination against people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In Florida, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis has told cruise lines that they may not require passengers to provide proof of vaccination. Cruise ships are notorious breeders of the virus because hundreds or thous
Two Pro-Public School Organizations Are MergingIn the education world, currently controlled by a coalition of billionaires and the rightwing think tanks and legislators they finance, public schools have some valuable friends. Among them are the National Superintendents Roundtable and the Schlechty Center. If your school board is looking for a new superintendent who believes in public schools, these are the go-to sources. They are the anti-Bro
The Teen Who Inspired Zaila Avant-Garde to Win the National Spelling BeeThe Washington Post wrote about the teen who inspired Zaila Avant-Garde , the first African American to win the national spelling bee. A 13-year-old girl from Akron, MacNolia Cox, was among the first Black Americans to make it to the national spelling bee, 85 years ago. Her story says a lot about her determination, but also about the racism and segregation that she had to endure when she went to
Boston Changes Admissions Criteria for Exam SchoolsBoston has several elite high schools where admission is determined by test scores. The most famous is the Boston Latin School. The Boston school board debated the admissions policy at length and voted unanimously to change it, to open the way for less advantaged students. The Boston School Committee on Wednesday night unanimously approved the biggest overhaul of the city’s exam school admission
Ohio Governor Signs Bill To Ban Schools and Universities from Requiring COVID VaccinationsAmerica, we have a problem. The COVID is spreading, largely through a highly contagious variant called Delta, but only 48.3% of the population is vaccinated. More than 600,000 Americans have died. In five states—Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Wyoming, and Louisisna—less than 36% are vaccinated. Despite the resurgence of this deadly disease, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed legislation barring sc
Chris Whittle Loses His Home in the Hamptons, Once Listed for $140 MillionBeing an eduEntreneur does not always pay off. Chris Whittle founded the Edison Project, which was supposed to be for profit, but after much turmoil, its stock price plummeted, and he moved on. (Read Samuel Abrams’ fascinating history of the Edison Project in Education and the Commercial Mindset) . Most recently, Whittle founded Avenues, which was planned to be a global chain of boutique for-prof
Bruce D. Baker: Time to Tax Churches!Bruce D. Baker is a school finance expert at Rutgers University. He writes here that the changing legal status of religious schools opens the door to taxing churches. He begins: On June 30 th 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that if a state has a program of providing public financing for private entities to provide educational services, that program cannot exclude from participation any in
Missouri: GOP Passes VouchersThe voucher movement should be dead, in light of the numerous evaluations showing that voucher schools do not get better results than public schoools, and in many evaluations, voucher students lose ground compared to their peers in public schools. The GOP is determined to siphon public dollars away from public schools and send them to religious schools. Missouri Governor Parson just signed a vouc
Jay Mathews Corrects an Error on the BlogJay Mathews writes about education for the Washington Post. Although he and I don’t always agree (he is a huge admirer of KIPP and wrote a book about it), I have always found him to be extremely congenial. He recently sent me the following note, asking for a correction, and I asked and received his permission to post it in full. I don’t recall whether Tom or I wrote the sentence he quotes, but I
Fred Klonsky: What Happened When Marjorie Taylor Greene Visited IllinoisFred Klonsky writes here about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ’s recent visit to Illinois. She came to support a member of Congress who is running for re-election and shares Greene’s extremist views. She campaigned in the most
