The best — and worst — education news of 2018 - The Washington Post

The best — and worst — education news of 2018 - The Washington Post

The best — and worst — education news of 2018

Every December veteran educator Larry Ferlazzo looks at the year in education news and makes his list of what he thinks the best — and the worst — of it was.

Of course it is subjective, and if you disagree with him, tell him (nicely) in the comments.

Ferlazzo is a teacher of English and social studies at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento He has written numerous books on education, writes a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and has his own popular resource-sharing blog.

See whether you agree with his assessment. You can find links to his lists from past years at the bottom of this post.

By Larry Ferlazzo

As usual, I don’t presume to say this compilation all-encompassing, so I hope you’ll take time to share your own choices. I’ll list the ones I think are the best first, followed by the worst. It’s too hard to rank them within those categories, so I’m not listing them in any order.

The Best Education News Of 2018

* The November elections brought lots of good news:

• The new Democratic majority in the House might be able to hold Betsy DeVos more accountable.
• Three additional states voted for Medicaid expansion, which should help huge numbers of kids and their families (research has already shown the positive impact on students when they have health insurance).
• Dozens of teachers won elections across the United States, including 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes (who became the first African American congresswoman from Connecticut).
• Tony Thurmond defeated Marshall Tuck and his millions of dollars from charter-school backers to become state superintendent of Public Instruction here in California.

It wasn’t all good news, and some school funding measures lost, but — overall — it was a Continue reading: The best — and worst — education news of 2018 - The Washington Post

More Education News from Chicago: WBEZ Publishes the Troubling History of Chicago’s Public School Closures | janresseger

More Education News from Chicago: WBEZ Publishes the Troubling History of Chicago’s Public School Closures | janresseger

More Education News from Chicago: WBEZ Publishes the Troubling History of Chicago’s Public School Closures

It is quite a week for education news from Chicago.  Yesterday this blog covered the first teachers’ strike at a charter school network, UNO-Acero Charter Schools in Chicago.

Today’s post considers nearly two decades of closures of traditional neighborhood schools in Chicago.  Chicago’s closure of so-called “failing” schools began in 2002. Two years later, Chicago’s technocratic model of test-based, punitive, turnaround-based school reform was formalized into Renaissance 2010, the program led by Arne Duncan. The “turnaround” idea—later brought by Duncan into federal programs— was to punish schools posting low test scores by firing teachers and principals, closing schools, and replacing them with privately operated charter schools.  It was an early example of an ideology the inventor of this kind of school policy calls “portfolio school reform“—the idea that a district manage its schools, public and charter alike, as though they are a stock portfolio. Keep and invest in the schools that raise scores, and shed the failures.

The “portfolio” model features disruption as a virtue and condemns stability as the product of bureaucracy and tradition.  It is a business-school idea whose proponents have forgotten to consider that real children, parents and communities are involved, and that there might be human damage from this kind of disruption. The theory involves test scores, moving kids around, and formulas to determine which buildings are being optimally utilized. The ideology dreams up a spiral of continuous growth in the number of high-scoring schools.

On Monday, Chicago’s WBEZ published a history of the Chicago school closures which have been the centerpiece of this plan: “In the time it has taken for a child to grow up in Chicago, city leaders have either closed or radically shaken up some 200 public schools—nearly a third of the entire district…. These decisions, defended as the best and only way to improve chronically low-performing schools or deal with serious under-enrollment, have meant 70,160 children—the vast majority of them black—have seen their schools closed or all staff in them fired… 61,420 black children affected. The number of children who have lived through a More Education News from Chicago: WBEZ Publishes the Troubling History of Chicago’s Public School Closures | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Baldfaced Power Grab

CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Baldfaced Power Grab

MI: Baldfaced Power Grab

Lansing is witnessing one of the most extraordinary power grabs ever attempted, and one of the targets of these lame duck Republicans is the state board of education.

Several actions are being attempted by the legislature, and they include an attempt to complete supplant the constitutionally established and democratically elected state board of education.

The move to overturn the democratic process is not unusual for either education or Michigan. Reeformsters have long used the move of pushing aside, dissolving, or neutering elected school boards, and Michigan also has s history of appointing "emergency managers" to strip power from locally elected officials (think Flint and how well that worked out).

Lansing in the winter, with bitter GOP sadness in the air

But generally speaking, these power grabs have two main characteristics-- one is that the voters who are stripped of their voting power are usually black or brown, and the other is that some sort of noble pretense is offered (such as the ever-popular "we're doing this For The Children).

But in Michigan, the GOP is prepared to negate the votes of an entire state (even the white folks). And in Michigan, the masks are off. As in Wisconsin, where a similar GOP revolt against democracy is under way, there is not even a thin veil of reasoning for the power grab. The argument is simple-- the Democrats are going to have power, and we don't want them to.

In fairness to the Michigan coup leaders, there's also an element of "They never obey me." The state board is about two shift from a 4-4 GOP-Dem makeup to a 6-2 spoilt favoring Democrats, but the Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Baldfaced Power Grab

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action!

The national Black Lives Matter At School movement has launched a petition to seek support for its upcoming 2019 week of action from February 4-8. This is a movement that began during the 2016-2017 school year in Seattle and that same year spread to Philadelphia and Rochester, NY. Last school year was the first nationally coordinated Black Lives Matter At School week of action with thousands of educators, students, parents, and community members participating in over 20 cities around the U.S. Organizers are hoping to build on the success of last year’s action and are asking people to pledge their support for the movement in the weeks ahead of the national action. As they write in the petition:

Hate crimes have spiked severely across the United States. The school-to-prison-nexus is fueling mass incarceration. Black students are being suspended at dramatically disproportionate rates. Today, some 1.7 million students attend a school that has no school counselor but does have a police officer. Black teachers are being pushed out of classrooms around the country. Too often, classroom curriculum is whitewashed to exclude many of the struggles and contributions of Black people and other people of color. … Join this growing movement of educators working to dismantle anti-Blackness in our school.

Sign the petition, share it on social media, get the BLM At School t-shirt, download the lesson plans, and pledge your support for the Black Lives Matter At School movement!

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Teaching for Black Lives | Paperback for Sale - https://www.rethinkingschools.org/books/title/teaching-for-black-lives on @RethinkSchools

More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was not on the ballot in the Michigan governor’s race, but her legacy loomed over the campaign in her home state, which has the country’s highest concentration of for-profit charter schools.

Republican Bill Schuette, a DeVos ally and the state’s attorney general, ultimately lost to Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat and former state lawmaker who pledged on the campaign trail to “put an end to the DeVos agenda.” She has promised to stop new for-profit schools from opening and to demand more accountability from charter schools.

Michigan was one of several key states that elected new governors who are more skeptical of charter schools than their election opponents, and will replace leaders who openly supported the sector that enrolls roughly 3 million students across the U.S. in schools that are publicly funded but privately run.

The states that saw such reversals — including California, Illinois and Michigan — are home to some of the strongest charter school enrollment numbers, and the outcomes suggest the political landscape could be growing more difficult for future expansion, particularly under Democratic leadership. The winners pledged support for traditional public schools while campaigning in the shadow of a teacher protest movement that forced a national conversation about the state of public education.

As Democrats flipped seven governor seats to bolster their numbers to 23 across the country, the CONTINUE READING: More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat

The person who wins the open Los Angeles school board seat in a March special election will serve less than two years and enter the fray during a period of budget strain and labor unrest.

The campaign might overlap with a teachers strike.

Even so, at least nine candidates have stepped up, gathering the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. They are vying to represent the oddly shaped District 5 of Los Angeles Unified, which covers some neighborhoods north of downtown L.A. as well as the cities of southeast Los Angeles County. The seat opened up in July, when Ref Rodriguez resigned after pleading guilty to one felony and three misdemeanors for campaign-fundraising violations.

The seven-member Board of Education is closely split on key issues, including how to interact with privately operated charter schools, which compete with L.A. Unified for students.

In recent years, L.A. school board races have been marked by record spending. Charter school supporters have spent the most, followed by the teachers union.

It remains to be seen which of the candidates will win major financial support.

The leadership of United Teachers Los Angeles seems to be coalescing behind Jackie Goldberg, a longtime teacher who previously served on the school board and also was a member of the L.A. City Council and the state Assembly.

The union’s political action committee has voted overwhelmingly to back Goldberg, although there was support for Graciela Ortiz, a counselor at Marquez High School in Huntington Park. Ortiz is active in the union and is on the Huntington Park City Council. That city is part of District 5.

“It’s hard to argue against Jackie,” said Gregg Solkovits, a former union vice president who’s on the political action committee. “She’s always been there for UTLA. And she’s one of the most fabulous teachers I’ve ever seen.

The union’s ultimate endorsement decision will be made by its House of Representatives.

The charter camp so far is keeping its strategy under wraps, though one potential favorite is CONTINUE READING: A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity

Betsy DeVos says that Florida is a national model.

She loves Florida because she invested millions of dollars imposing vouchers and charters, despite the provision of the State Constitution that requires a uniform system of common schools.

Actually, Florida’s performance on NAEP is mediocre. Its fourth grade scores are swell because low-scoring third-graders are not allowed to enter fourth grade. A really neat trick! Pay attention to eighth grade scores: In eighth grade math, students in Florida are well below the national average. In eighth grade reading, Florida is right at the national average. Nothing impressive about Florida, other than gaming the fourth grade scores by holding back third-graders with low scores. By eighth grade, the game is over, and the results are not impressive.

Thompson says that Oklahoma lawmakers are in love with a libertarian study claiming that spending less produces the best education! Is that why the elites spend $50,000 a year or more on tuition to get lower class sizes and experienced teachers? The only time that money doesn’t matter is if you have a lot of it.

Despite Florida being average on NAEP, Oklahoma legislators hope to be just like Florida!

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, brings us up to date:

Oklahoma edu-politics remains in the spotlight after the 2018 election and it illustrates plenty of national issues. Despite many electoral gains, educators must worry about the state’s inexperienced governor, Kevin Continue reading: John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity | Diane Ravitch's blog

Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

At a recent school board meeting in New Orleans, more than 100 parents swamped the hearing room, requiring dozens to have to stand. Many of the parents had filled out public comment cards so they would be allowed to address the board.

What most in the crowd came prepared to talk about were their concerns about recent recommendations by the superintendent to close five schools and transfer the students to other schools in the district. Their demand was for the elected board to take a more hands-on role in improving the schools instead of closing them down.

But when Ashana Bigard, a New Orleans public school parent and advocate, realized the board had altered the agenda, and limited parents’ comment time, she decided to speak out of turn.

“How is closing the schools helping our children?” she asked the board members. She pointed out that many of the children in the schools being closed are special needs students with serious, trauma-induced learning disabilities, and now these children are being uprooted and transferred to schools that lack expertise with these problems. “These children have been experimented on for too long,” she declared.

That’s when a district staff member intervened and escorted her out of the room.

A Demand for Real Democracy

Parents’ protesting a school closing is nothing new. But for parents to demand that their local board take more control of the school, and run it directly rather than closing it down, is a twist. That’s because this is New Continue reading: Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network | janresseger

Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network | janresseger

Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network

In the first walkout at a U.S. charter school network, 500 teachers at Chicago’s Acero (formerly UNO) charter school chain went on strike Tuesday.

Acero Charter Schools’ teachers are represented by the Chicago Teachers Union.  While teachers in a number of Chicago charter schools had formed their own ChiACTS union, at the end of last January, ChiACTS merged with the 28,000 member Chicago Teachers Union, an American Federation of Teachers local.

The NY Times‘ Dana Goldstein reports that Acero charter schools serve 7,000 students. “Educators at Acero earn up to $13,000 less than their counterparts at traditional public schools in Chicago…. The chief executive of Acero, Richard I. Rodriguez, earns about $260,000 annually to manage 15 schools, a similar salary to that of Janice K. Jackson, the chief executive of the Chicago Public School system, which includes over 500 schools.”

In a press release, the Chicago Teachers’ Union describes critical issues on which the school’s management team and the CTU bargaining team remain far apart: “class size, sanctuary school community language in the contract, fair compensation for paraprofessionals, and lower class sizes, which are currently set at 32 students per class—four more than what Chicago Public Schools seeks to meet at district-run schools.  CTU members have called those class sizes both outrageous and unsafe for students, particularly children in kindergarten Continue reading: Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network | janresseger

High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip

When asked how I got interested in the uses of technology in schools and classrooms, I answer that I was the target for a quarter-century of high-tech innovations and classroom reforms  when I taught high school history and as a district administrator in two urban school systems.

I then say that I have been trained as an historian and studied many efforts of reformers to improve schooling over the past century in U.S. classrooms, schools, and districts. I examined how teachers have taught since the 1890s. I investigated policymakers’ constant changes in curriculum since the 1880s. I analyzed the origins of the age-graded school and the spread of this innovation through the 19th century. And I parsed the Utopian dreams of reformers who believed that new machine technologies (e.g., film, radio, instructional television, desktop computer) would alter how teachers teach and students learn. I then conclude my answer by pointing out that these electronic devices are in the DNA of all classroom-driven reforms aimed at altering how teachers teach and how students learn.

What surprises me is that these questioners had not viewed high-tech innovations as having either a history in schools or as blood relations to constant efforts to improve schools. Instead, they saw (and see) innovative high-tech devices as singular, even exceptional, ways of transforming teaching and Continue reading: High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three | deutsch29

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three | deutsch29

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three

Charter school teachers are not supposed to strike.

They are supposed to be at-will employees, able to be fired at the will of their employer, without due process.

Such is the dream of market-based ed reform: Power concentrated at the top, with the average worker discouraged (prevented?) from any collective negotiations.

However, those on the losing end of market ed reform’s doormatism become tired, and, well, if they are teachers– charter school teachers– they might just decide that bowing to the demands of the top dogs presents a final straw and unionize— which is what the teachers at UNO charter schools in Chicago) (now Acero by name, with the name change following such remarkable events as UNO’s defrauding bondholders in 2014).

And as of December 04, 2018, the teachers of Chicago’s Acero charter school chain (15 schools) have been on strike, for the following:

CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) said the network’s 500 teachers are demanding smaller classes, more special education staff, salary increases Continue reading: 

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three | deutsch29

George H. W. Bush: A Tribute and a Happy Memory of My Time in D.C. | Diane Ravitch's blog

George H. W. Bush: A Tribute and a Happy Memory of My Time in D.C. | Diane Ravitch's blog

George H. W. Bush: A Tribute and a Happy Memory of My Time in D.C.

I’m in an airplane, flying from NYC to L.A., where I will attend the annual dinner of LAANE, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. This group fought for and won a battle to raise the minimum wage. I believe and hope they will join the struggle to support public schools and save them from the clutches of the billionaires.

As I fly, I’m watching the state funeral of President George H.W. Bush. The services are very moving. People speak of his decency, his sense of honor, his humility, his dignity, his loyalty to friends and family, his patriotism, his sense of duty and courage (he volunteered for combat duty in World War II right out of high school). Trump is sitting in the front row, scowling and looking uncomfortable. It’s not about him.

The former Prime Minister of Canada spoke about Bush’s devotion to improving the environment, assuring that we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. Others spoke of his support for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Still others referred to his steady hand as the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold war ended. I broke down and cried when his son George W. said that he takes comfort in knowing that his dad is now hugging Robin (the daughter who died of leukemia at age 3) and holding Barbara’s hand. Because I hope sometime I’ll meet Steven, who died of the same disease at age 2.

I won’t pretend that I saw a lot of him when I worked in his administration. I did not.

When I was Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Research and Improvement during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, I made only one trip to the Oval Office.

I was invited to join Secretary Lamar Alexander and Deputy Secretary Continue reading: George H. W. Bush: A Tribute and a Happy Memory of My Time in D.C. | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ravitch Goals 2000 | User Clip | C-SPAN.org - https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4469542/ravitch-goals-2000

CURMUDGUCATION: Real Stupid Artificial Intelligence (Personalized Learning's Missing Link)

CURMUDGUCATION: Real Stupid Artificial Intelligence (Personalized Learning's Missing Link)

Real Stupid Artificial Intelligence (Personalized Learning's Missing Link)

Good lord in heaven.

Intel would like a piece of the hot new world of Personalized [sic] Learning, and they think they have an awesome AI to help. And they have concocted a deliberately misleading video to promote it.

In the video, we see a live human teacher in a classroom full of live humans, all of whom are being monitored by some machine algorithms "that detect student emotions and behaviors" and they do it in real time. Now teachers may reply, "Well, yes, I've been doing that for years, using a technique called Using My Eyeballs, My Ears, and My Brain." But apparently teachers should not waste time looking at students when they can instead monitor a screen. And then intervene in "real time," because of course most teachers take hours to figure out that Chris looked confused by the classwork and a few days to respond to that confusion.

Oh, the stupid. It hurts.

First, of course, the machine algorithm (copywriters will be damned if they're going to write anything like "students will be monitored by computers") cannot detect student emotions. They absolutely cannot. They are programmed to use certain observable behaviors as proxies for emotions and engagement. How will Intel measure such things? We'll get there in a second. But we've already seen one version of this sort of mind-reading from NWEA, the MAP test folks, who now Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: Real Stupid Artificial Intelligence (Personalized Learning's Missing Link)

Why School Choice Ends Up Creating Injustice and Inequality | janresseger

Why School Choice Ends Up Creating Injustice and Inequality | janresseger

Why School Choice Ends Up Creating Injustice and Inequality

In his new book, Educational Inequality and School Finance: Why Money Matters for America’s Students, school funding expert, Bruce Baker critiques the rapid expansion of charter schools for siphoning off dollars from state and local public school budgets.  Baker also addresses the philosophical contention frequently offered to justify the rapid expansion of school choice—that justice can be defined by offering more choices for those who have few.

Our society now accepts the essential promise of liberty defined as freedom from enslavement and domination. We also would like to believe that our society provides freedom from want, and many argue that school choice offers opportunity to those who have been disempowered by poverty.  The wealthy can pay for whatever kind of education they want to choose for their children.  So… what about helping poorer people with freedom of choice—at public expense—in an education marketplace? Won’t that result in what the “portfolio school reform” think tank, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, promises: “a great school for every child in every neighborhood”?

Baker argues that more choice will not necessarily result in equal access to quality schooling.  Instead, equal opportunity can be better protected systemically: “Liberty and equality are desirable policy outcomes. Thus, it would be convenient if policies simultaneously advanced both.  But it’s never that simple.  A large body of literature on political theory explains that liberty and equality are preferences that most often operate in tension with one another. While not mutually exclusive, they are certainly not one and the same. Preferences for and expansion of liberties often lead to greater inequality and division among members of society, whereas preferences for equality moderate those divisions. The only way expanded liberty can lead to greater equality is if available choices are substantively equal, conforming to a Continue reading: Why School Choice Ends Up Creating Injustice and Inequality | janresseger

Educational Inequality and School Finance: Why Money Matters for America's Students: Bruce D. Baker: 9781682532423: Amazon.com: Books - https://www.amazon.com/Educational-Inequality-School-Finance-Americas/dp/1682532429

CURMUDGUCATION: Education, Bad Leadership, and Harvard

CURMUDGUCATION: Education, Bad Leadership, and Harvard

Education, Bad Leadership, and Harvard

We have a problem with bad management, pretending to be leadership, in this country. And it has infected education.

Even in a small area like mine, the symptoms have been plain to see. A major local oil business was put under the leadership of a man who had previously run a soap company and a toy company. He was not good for the company. In my town, the mining machinery company that employed both my father and my brother passed through the hands of several management organizations who installed top brass who knew nothing about the mining industry. It did not end well. In both cases, major employers for the area were gutted, jobs lost, local economy damaged.

I think I left some leadership over by the tea pots.

It was the smaller scale version of what we've seen with retailers like Sears and Toys R Us-- companies that lost their flexibility and edge because they were run by dopes who didn't know the business-- just how to extract value.

All indications are that our tech giants are just as terribly run, with Facebook repeatedly in the hot seat for a morally tone deaf mistake-plagued string of bad behaviors. Duff McDonald took a look at the woman taking the heat, Sheryl Sandberg (she of Lean In fame), and in particular the kind of leadenly education she got from the Harvard Business School, which McDonald marks as ground zero in this bad leadership pandemic.

The truth is, Harvard Business School, like much of the M.B.A. universe in which Sandberg was reared, has always cared less about moral leadership than career advancement and financial performance. 

It is an education, McDonald says, that stresses that there are no right answers, and, he suggests, no moral dimension to making this choices. The article includes a story about Jeff Skilling, a product of Harvard Business School and McKinsey's Uber-consulting firm, operated in the same style.

One of Skilling’s H.B.S. classmates, John LeBoutillier, who went on to be a U.S. congressman, later recalled a case discussion in which the students were debating what the C.E.O. should do if he  Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: Education, Bad Leadership, and Harvard

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Rahm and his schools CEO try and sell their discredited reforms in D.C.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Rahm and his schools CEO try and sell their discredited reforms in D.C.

Rahm and his schools CEO try and sell their discredited reforms in D.C.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is so discredited on his education and policing policies that he's been forced out of a re-election bid. But that didn't stop him and his ever-faithful schools CEO Janice Jackson from putting in an appearance in D.C. on WaPo's Education in Americaforum recently to spread the good news about all things terrific going on in Chicago's public schools.

Jackson offered a few comments when she could get a word in, but it was obvious that Rahm had her there as window dressing.

Was there any discussion of the regime's continuing disastrous mass school-closings policy mostly in underserved black communities, or the dramatic plunge in CPS enrollment during Rahm's tenure? Glad you asked. No.

District officials report a loss of 10,000 students since the last school year, one of the largest single-year declines in more than a decade. In the last three years, 31,000 students have ghosted CPS classrooms. But the Post's Jonathan Capehart never asked about that.

But he did ask Rahm about his closed-door meeting with Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos. At first, Rahm and Jackson giggled as if trying to distance themselves from the right-wing buffoon who currently occupies the D.O.E. That was followed by a seemingly unending speed rap about all the great ed initiatives flowing out of the 5th floor at City Hall; i.e. longer school days, not Continue reading: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Rahm and his schools CEO try and sell their discredited reforms in D.C.