Cross-posted at Schools Matter: I am as regularly impressed by the amount of education news coverage in Milwaukee as I am by the degree of media blindness to the larger problems of poor people in Milwaukee--problems that cannot be separated out when trying to understand education issues that are, indeed, manifestations of the larger problems that remain invisible to those whose refusal to even acknowledge those problems serves to help rationalize harsher and harsher performance demands placed upon those least able to comply. When social historians look back in 50 years, no doubt they will see...
Maggie and Jon
From the CHE news blogComedy Left Behind as Margaret Spellings Appears on 'Daily Show'Margaret Spellings is the secretary of education, not the secretary of defense, but she may nevertheless be the bravest member of President Bush’s cabinet.Ms. Spellings, capping a visit on Tuesday to New York City, sat down as the evening’s guest on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, a comedy program on cable television known for its caustic — and decidedly left-of-center — treatment of current events. Ms. Spellings appeared last fall as an unsuccessful contestant on the game show Jeopardy, but The Daily Show promised...
Another Department of Education scandal
[NB] In case no one has noticed, between the Reading First scandal, the student loan scandal, and now this, the Dept of Education has become quite the center for corruption in this administrationhttp://www.first-draft.com/2007/05/one_of_these_da.html[ABC] The White House appointee in charge of the Education Department's troubled financial aid office took home $250,000 in bonuses, leading Democratic lawmakers to question what she did to deserve such lavish rewards. . . [read ...
Our seniors are gone - a personal reflection
yes, this is NOT strictly speaking educational policy. I am posting this in a number of venues, and as the perhaps the only K-12 public school teacher participating here, thought it relevant to share because it is my connection with young people that drives my participation in educational policy discussionYesterday was the last day for our seniors. That may seem strange. Graduation is June 1, and the school year goes for almost another two weeks beyond that. I won’t try to justify this. But yesterday was the beginning of a time for goodbyes, and when one says goodbye, it is not unusual for...
Accountability for Failing Businessmen and Politicians
Our business and government leaders, always at the ready to devise more and more rigorous accountability schemes for those without power, remain immune from the same kind of accountability that they would impose on school children and their teachers. In the meantime, an intellectual and emotional rigor mortis has set in at these schools that businessmen and politicians would, otherwise, make accountable, as joy and trust have evaporated at the same rate that threats and policing have moved into the classrooms.Isn't it time to devise an accountability system for our own policymakers and employers...
Cronyism and corruption in the Dept of Education (why should it be any different?)
[NYT] Officials who gave states advice on which teaching materials to buy under a federal reading program had deep financial ties to publishers, according to a congressional report Wednesday.The report, compiled by Senate Education Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., details how officials contracted by the government to help run the program were at the same time drawing pay from publishers that benefited from the reading initiative.Kennedy's report added new detail to a conflict-of-interest investigation by the Education Department's inspector general, John Higgens, who earlier had found...
The coming backlash against one-to-one computing, and what it suggests about educational policy
The following is also posted on my blog at http://technopaideia.blogspot.com. A New York Times article this week talks about some schools and school districts that have decided to discontinue one-to-one laptop initiatives in which each student is provided their own computer. While there are some questions about the quality of reporting in the article and the real issues involved in at least one district's decision to end giving out laptops (see this blog post), the article offers some cautions to those who believe (with the State of Maine and Apple) that one-to-one initiatives offer the best route...
Paul Vallas and the Future New Orleans Schools Miracle
Posted at Schools Matter May 6, 2007:There could not have a more appropriate finale to National Charter Schools Week than to have diehard EMO advocate, Paul Vallas, announced as the next superintendent of the distressed New Orleans Schools.Even though you would never know it from reading the New York Times story on Vallas's new adventure and venture, he leaves an unimpressive privatization experiment hanging by a thread in Philadelphia, where a Rand study earlier this year showed the EMO-managed schools underperforming the public schools they were to replace--even though EMOs receive $450-$750...
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