Anyone who follows my posts on public education reform (here's a good place for a primer) knows that I am not a fan of the Obama administration's public education initiatives, including Race to the Top. The programs are, in my view, mislabeled, misdirected, and misguided. I would have used the word hate to describe my [...]
Did you read the article in the New York Times last week discussing research that demonstrated the clear importance of kindergarten to later success? It was a real eye opener for many people who are involved in public education and real confirmation for those of us who have advocated for true reform in an American [...]
I ask this question rhetorically because there is a wealth of data demonstrating the value of a high school education in terms of higher income and greater career advancement compared to dropping out. But when I ask this question, I am also speaking specifically about the typical curriculum that high school offer and the jobs [...]
Even before any action is taken to reform our public education system, the current efforts being championed by President Obama and administered by Education Secretary Arne Duncan are missing the mark at two fundamental levels and, in doing so, ill serve the needs of all students. First, let's start with what public education reform really [...]
In my last post, I described what I believe is a tragedy of national proportion as exemplified by practices in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that demonstrate a wanton disregard for the education of its students. In that post, I introduced you to Leonard Isenberg, a respected public school teacher of 15 years, [...]
It is a scenario that I just don't want to believe because it affirms my (our!) worst impressions of public education for the poor in America. This post has everything you would expect from a massively flawed and inertial monolith: a system failed, a bureaucracy corrupted, teachers subverted, and young people disserved. It has all [...]
Hey, it wasn't my idea; a commenter raised the question in response to a recent blog post in which I argued that bad parenting is the number-one cause of failing students and failing schools and, consequently, the best point of intervention for public education reform. But it is an intriguing idea. Now, you may be [...]
How much more evidence do we need before we conclude that charter schools aren't the panacea for America's public education woes that so many believe them to be? If you missed the story last week, a charter school created and administered by Stanford University's renowned Department of Education had its charter revoked by the local [...]
When did teachers become the bêtes noir of public education? Why are they getting all the blame for America’s public education failings? Everywhere you look, people are piling on teachers as if they are at the root of all that is bad in our public education system. Even President Obama has gotten in the act, [...]
We've been hearing a lot about public education reform lately; No Child Left Behind is up for reauthorization and the Race to the Top is one of President Obama's top policy initiatives. But all this talk about reform is not really about public education. "Public education" is a code phrase for education for the poor [...]