CURMUDGUCATION: Student Poverty on the Map

CURMUDGUCATION: Student Poverty on the Map:

Student Poverty on the Map

You may remember EdBuild as the outfit whose founder and boss declared that school district bankruptcy is super-awesome because it provides golden opportunities to do things like trash all your employees pensions and health care.

But EdBuild, because they are focused on real estate and finance, came up with a cool little map. It tracks student poverty school district by school district from 2006 through 2013. You might say, "Well, that doesn't seem like enough time to show much," and boy, I wish that were true, but it's not. Watch the map toggle through those years zoomed out to see the whole nation or closer to see your state or really close to see your district and the neighboring ones-- no matter how you cut it, we have been growing poverty like there's some huge demand for it somewhere.

If you want a real kick in the pants, just go directly from 2006 to 2013. Then ask yourself if you think anything has gotten better in the last two years. And then ask yourself why we've spent the last ten years talking about test scores and Common Core standards when we should be talking about the spreading mess that poverty is bringing into every corner of the country.

Most of all, consider that the increase is not because more children are being born into poor CURMUDGUCATION: Student Poverty on the Map:







Brown Calls for End of Public Education

Well, at least she just put it right out there.

In a piece at the Daily Beast, Campbell Brown calls for US politicians to follow the example of  the UK Prime Minister David Cameron. And what example is that?

Last week, addressing his party for the first time since re-election in May, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron called for an end to the country’s traditional public school system, endorsing instead a nationwide conversion to academies, which are essentially the British equivalent of charter schools—publicly funded, but with greater freedom over what they teach and how they are run.

And Brown includes this quote from Cameron:


“So my next ambition is this,” Cameron told a nationally televised audience, “five hundred new free schools. Every school an academy…and yes—local authorities running schools a thing of the past.”

And just in case you're wondering if I'm using context to make Brown seem more radical than she actually is, here are more of her own words;

In a rational world, hosannas might greet a head of state who used his power to reduce inequality.

There are several astonishing ideas folded into that sentence, but the most astonishing is that a Brown Calls for End of Public Education