Correcting The Record On Education Reform
New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, put together an advisory council to help his state “reimagine” public education. Fearing Cuomo and his partner, the Gates Foundation, will produce a plan that creates accountability and expectations in their public school pension farm, the NYC teacher types pounced. “There’s no current classroom teacher on this list of advisors” they whined. […] More
Re-posted with permission from Citizen Stewart by Chris Stewart. Public schools in New Mexico aren’t funding students equitably, so says the U.S. Department Education who accuse the state’s leaders of “diverting [$63 million] in federal Impact Aid grants” intended to help school districts that are disadvantaged by their low tax bases. The feds found that […] More
Last week, the Network for Public Education (NPE) again revealed that they are incapable of conducting unbiased and well-executed research. In a follow-up to a report they released earlier this year, the new report, Still Asleep at the Wheel, set out to undermine the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) by documenting supposed waste and fraud. […] More
Elizabeth Warren is the candidate with “a plan for everything,” including public education. There are some good ideas in there—such as ending zero-tolerance discipline policies and $100 billion in “Excellence Grants” for any public school (including charter schools, believe it or not.) But tucked away at the end is a poison pill under the subtitle: […] More
Last week, NBC announced it will host a nationally-televised forum for Democratic presidential candidates on December 14th that will focus exclusively on public education issues. NBC’s Public Education Forum 2020, which is being held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh, will be moderated by MSNBC Live host Ali Velshi and NBC […] More
Look, I know Diane Ravitch is no fan of school choice (anymore)—the educational cause that is my hill to die on. I suspect she disagrees with virtually every tweet I’ve put out, except maybe this one about excessive screen time in schools? But I was honestly concerned last week when she decided to respond to […] More
A few years ago, the St. Paul Federation of Educators was boasting about how it was “bargaining for the common good” by using contract negotiations to advocate for policies that benefitted not only teachers, but parents and community stakeholders. As then-SPFE president (and current Minnesota Commissioner of Education) Mary Cathryn Ricker explained in a piece […] More
The Council of the District of Columbia will consider legislation that could lead to the dismantling of IMPACT, the teacher evaluation system that has been used by D.C. Public Schools for the past decade. The bill, which was drafted by the Washington Teachers Union and introduced by Councilman Trayon White last week, would make evaluations […] More
The self-described mission of the Network for Public Education, the anti-education reform organization founded by Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris, centers on “building alliances with grassroots groups across the nation” that oppose all the usual boogeymen: standardized testing, charter schools, school and district accountability, teacher evaluation, etc. Who exactly are the groups in NPE’s coalition? […] More
Tens of thousands of teachers in Los Angeles returned to their classrooms yesterday following a six-day strike that disrupted the lives of over 467,000 students and cost the L.A. Unified School District over $151 million in lost revenue. Tuesday morning, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, flanked by LAUSD Supt. Austin Beutner and United Teachers of Los […] More
Investigators hired by the Portland Public Schools board released a damning 320-page report last week detailing how the district repeatedly failed to address allegations of serious sexual misconduct against Mitch Whitehurst, a former Portland Public Schools teacher who retired in 2015 after 32 years with the school system. Whitehurst’s misdeeds – and the district’s complacency in […] More
As I noted earlier this week, a group of anti-reform activists in Colorado recently passed an amendment to the state Democratic Party platform opposing the Colorado chapter of Democrats for Education Reform and calling on the organization drop “Democrats” from its name.1 Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time DFER has been attacked by groups from […] More
Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.
Here you'll find all collections you've created before.
Seth Saavedra
Nathan Barrett
Peter Cook
Erika Sanzi