NC Teacher: Time to Stop Blaming W for the Impossible Mandates and Wishful Thinking
A teacher in North Carolina left this comment: NC has requested a waiver that even though we are now on the new evaluation system (which, interestingly, is continuously being reworked (Home Base) because Pearson is still getting kinks out—-possibly another one of those airplanes being built in the air)—anyway, the waiver would allow that even though the online evaluator system (which I assume fact
My Opinion: Time to End the Status Quo in NYC
I was invited to write about the changes that the next mayor of New York City should. Make in the education system. This is what I wrote. I begin thus: “My grandson starts second grade in a Brooklyn public school, so I hope to see real change in the city school system, not just for his sake but for the benefit of all the 1.1 million students. “By real change, I mean a new vision for education.
South Bronx Charter School Accused of Firing Whistleblower
John Marzulli of the New York Daily News reports that the ex-project manager of the South Bronx Classical Charter School is suing the school for $1 million for firing her for reporting financial and academic wrong-doing. She allegedly told supervisors that the school was billing the city for special education students who were not enrolled and that some exams were plagiarized. She also complained
Los Angeles Teacher: We Don’t Need iPads, We Need Help
A letter from a teacher in Los Angeles about the decision to spend $1 billion to buy iPads. “How could the bond oversight committee actually approve this deal when we (a specific school in LAUSD) still have classrooms with chalkboards, desks from the 1950s, an internet infrastructure that constantly lets us down – we can NEVER play video because there is never enough bandwidth, a library with a bo
The Two Nations That Learned From Us
Two nations were influenced by our thinkers and example: Finland and Chile. Finland learned its lessons from John Dewey. Its schools are child-centered. It prizes the arts and physical education. It has no standardized testing. Its schools are noted for both excellence and equity. It is a top performer on international tests. Chile learned its lessons from Milton Friedman. It has vouchers and test
How Bill de Blasio Could Become a National Leader
In this article published at The Daily Kos, the writer describes Bill de Blasio’s forceful demand for a moratorium on new charter “co-locations.” As the author explains, “co-location” is a euphemism for a hostile appropriation of public space, which is given rent-free to private charter operators, some of which have billionaires on their board. When a charter school is “co-located” with a public s
Welcome to Charterland: The Game
The National Opportunity to Learn campaign has created a game called Charterland, based on the popular children’s game Candyland. Test your skills. Would you make it to the finish lime?
Everything You Wanted to Know about Teacher Evaluation But Were Afraid to Ask
This is a terrific new book with essays showing what a farce the current test-based evaluation of teachers is. It includes the work of several distinguished scholars who understand that it is farcical to judge teacher “quality” by using the scores on standardized tests. I was happy to write the introduction. Read the description and you will want to read the book. One major finding: No state is us
Yevonne Brannon: A Hero of Public Education in North Carolina
North Carolina is one of several national hotspots for the “reform” movement’s campaign to privatize public education. With extremists in control of the Legislature and the Governorship, public education is under siege. The governor has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the public schools, while claiming that his cuts were actually increases. Acting with the Legislature, the governor has e
The Secret Thoughts of a Florida Teacher: “Get Out of My Room and Leave Me Alone!”
This comment came from an elementary teacher in Florida–who is a National Board Certified Teacher– whose school got an F on the state’s useless and invalid grading system: I have no doubt that the whole point of what the conservative Republican NC legislature has done and what the “reformers” nationwide are doing is make sure that as many of us as possible leave the profession so that the NEA and
South Carolina Teacher: What Keeps Me in the Classroom
Kay McSpadden is a high school teacher in York, South Carolina, and also a columnist for the Charlotte Observer. In this post, she writes about the students she has taught, the difficult lives they lead, the courage they display. Even as the kids are grappling with hard lives, the legislators in North and South Carolina are wreaking destruction on one of the few stable institutions in the children
Insider at Bloomberg DOE Spills the Beans About Failed Policies
Mayor Michael Bloomberg will leave office on January 1 after 12 years as mayor of the nation’s biggest city. His legacy will not be the transformation of the school system. If anything, he blew up the system, eliminated supervisors, closed schools, opened new schools, cheered the growth of the charter sector (which ironically is out of his control), opened hundreds of new schools, and used test sc
Diane in the Evening 9-7-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all: Bill de Blasio Is NOT Running a Racist CampaignIn an interview with New York magazine, outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg accused frontunner Bill de Blasio of running a “racist” campaign. He graciously conceded that de Blasio is not a “racist” personally, just that his campaign is racist. He accused de Blasio of appealing to the blac
