While hardcore progressives and Tea Party activists continue cozying up to each other in a shared rejection of the Common Core, I have a radical proposal to make – and it might just be crazy enough to garner an equally eclectic coalition of support:
Let’s eliminate private schools altogether. Or, better yet, let’s make every school both public and private.
Tags: Equity, school funding, thurgood marshall
1 CommentI read an interesting Op-Ed about education in today’s Washington Post, in which the author wrote the following: “The proper role of government is to ensure the provision of essential services, not always to provide those services itself.” Leaving aside the author’s particular perspective on K-12 education reform, I’m curious: How many people out there [...]
Tags: Civil Rights museum, Equity, finland, good video, Inaugural address, obama, school funding
2 CommentsNow that five states are planning to add 300 hours of class time in an effort to close the achievement gap and re-imagine the school day, I can only come to one conclusion: Something’s got to give. Continue reading . . .
There’s a lot of excess noise in just about every contemporary debate about public education, which makes it hard for anyone to see clearly what’s happening and what needs to happen in order to pull our institutions of American schooling – from Kindergarten to College – out of the Industrial era and into the modern world.
One thing, however, seems clear at every level: we need to become a lot more efficient in how we spend our money (not to mention a lot smarter in how we use our degree). Which is why I find it interesting that almost no one is talking about what Florida Governor Rick Scott proposed last week.
Tags: college, Florida, higher education, MOOC, online learning, Rick Scott, Shop Class as Soulcraft, university
2 CommentsTags: Assessment, charter schools, finland, freedom, great teaching, Leadership, Learning, obama, school choice, special education, teachers, teaching
2 CommentsWon’t Back Down, the new Hollywood film about two mothers determined to take over their children’s failing inner city school, represents everything that’s wrong with the present way we talk about school reform – and everything we need to talk about more in the future. Continue reading . . .
Tags: CNN, inequity, injustice, parent engagement, parent trigger laws, school choice, Won't Back Down, zip codes
Leave a commentIn 1968, student protesters stationed outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago broke into a spontaneous chant that quickly crystallized the tenor of the times: “The whole world is watching!”
It’s ironic, then, that one day after this year’s Democratic National Convention, rumors of a city-wide teacher strike in Chicago are reaching a similarly feverous pitch.
Tags: Chicago, teacher strike
Leave a commentHow’s this for a summer blockbuster – the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state of Michigan for violating the “right to learn” of its children, a right guaranteed under an obscure state law.
That assistance hasn’t happened, says Kary L. Moss, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the ACLU. “The Highland Park School District is among the lowest-performing districts in the nation, graduating class after class of children who are not literate. Our lawsuit . . . says that if education is to mean anything, it means that children have a right to learn to read.”
Tags: 14th Amendment, ACLU, Brown v. Board of Education, education policy, ESEA, Michigan, NCLB, Right to Learn, thurgood marshall
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