Author Archives: Lloyd Lofthouse

Bruce Baker of Rutgers University is one of the nation’s foremost experts on school funding and spending. He reports here on the differences between charter schools and public schools. Back in the late 1980s, when the charter idea was first promoted, it’s advocates claimed that charters would be more accountable, would produce higher test scores, and would cost less. We now know—30 years later—that none of these promises were realized.

Baker writes:

Many of us are frequently bombarded with claims that district schools have a huge revenue and spending advantage over charter schools, and those claims are almost always cited to the same series of junk comparisons produced by the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform. The authors of those reports would have everyone else believe that no other research has even been produced on the topic. Time and time again, the same authors have engaged in a…

I read this excerpt from a new book, published in the Washington Post, and was mesmerized by the account. The book’s author is Lizzie Johnson, a Post reporter. I hope the Post will forgive me for reprinting it. I promise to delete the post if they object. Read it while you can and buy the book to make amends for reading this preview. Subscribe to the Washington Post so you can see the pictures that the two teachers took from inside the bus. The story is moving not only because of the bravery of the bus driver and the teachers and children, but because of the generosity they encountered along the way.

This story is adapted from “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire,” which was published this week by Penguin Random House.

The flames were just a mile from Ponderosa Elementary School when Kevin McKay…

The writer Anand Giridharadas writes a blog called The.Ink. In a recent post, he interviewed author Courtney Martin about her decision to send her child to the neighborhood public school, which was majority black and brown. Anand wrote a book that is very relevant to readers of this blog: Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.
In it, he argues that the global elite engage in great acts of philanthropy that do little to help the great masses of people but preserves the status quo in which they are the winners.

This is Anand’s introduction to his interview with Martin about her new book:

A few years ago, like millions of parents, Courtney Martin had to decide where to send her child to school. Because she is an acute and thoughtful journalist and social chronicler, she understood what a complicated and fraught and historically loaded decision that…

We have seen for many years that celebrities and billionaires love charter schools, though it is not apparent why since they are typically no better–and often much worse–than district public schools.

But there are a few signs of change.

The legendary singer Tony Bennett created the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts as part of the New York City school system. He and his wife Susan Crow Benedetto have established arts partnerships in nearly 40 more public schools, located in New York City and Los Angeles. They created an organization called “Exploring the Arts,” which promotes the arts in public schools and encourages youngsters to develop their creative talents. They began their mission in 1999, and it continues to grow.

In Los Angeles, two well-known figures in the entertainment industry asked Superintendent Austin Beutner if they could sponsor a public high school modeled on a successful program that they had…

Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University, has noticed a strange silence about Common Core, which was the hottest issue in K-12 just a few years ago. The silence does not mean that the issue has gone away.

Tampio writes:

The Common Core lives, unfortunately

On June 16, Emily Richmond of the Education Writers Association led off a lively social media exchange by tweeting: “Hey, remember the Common Core?”

One special education researcher replied that the Common Core is “implemented now in every classroom in America just under another name.”

Another teacher tweeted: “You mean what NY conveniently rebranded as “Next Generational Learning Standards”? It’s never gone away. 😞”

People also responded with memes of actors saying “Shhh!” and “We do not speak his name.”

Here, I would like to explain how the Common Core is implemented in nearly every…

Peter Greene writes here about the growing ferocity and viciousness of the rightwing crusade against “critical race theory.” Leave aside the fact that 99% of teachers have never heard of CRT, the crusaders are targeting teachers who are suspected of teaching about racism and social justice.

The crusaders operate on the assumption that teaching the actual history of racism, segregation, and Jim Crow is subversive and unpatriotic. Nothing negative ever happened in the U.S. It was all good.

Greene writes:

Anti-Critical Race Theory warriors are coming for schools, and for the teachers in them.

In New York City, the groupFree To Learnis spendingmillions of dollars on ad buysto target NYC schools (including some private ones) who are accused of indoctrinating children. The group says it supports the basic principle that students should be free to ask questions, develop individual thoughts and opinions, and think critically–but not…

I wrote the following article for the opinion section of the New York Daily News. According to Education Week, “As of June 29, 26 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Nine states have enacted these bans, either through legislation or other avenues.” During his last year in office, Trump denounced critical race theory and the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “The 1619 Project” and said that anyone who taught these materials was “indoctrinating” their students and turning them against America. He called for “patriotic education.”

I wrote the following:

Republican-led states across the country, including Texas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Iowa and New Hampshire, have passed laws to ban the teaching of “critical race theory”; CRT is an academic concept that was first…

Jeanne Melvin of Ohio’s Parent Education Partners has provided a useful guide to help readers discern the differences between actual parent groups and billionaire-funded astroturf parent groups.

Actual grassroots parent groups rely mostly on volunteers. They want to strengthen, preserve, and protect their public schools. They lobby the state legislature for more funding for public schools.

Astroturf parent groups are supported by billionaires, and they usually have a sizable staff of well-paid people. They exist to carry out the goals of their funders. They complain about how terrible the public schools are, and they advocate for charter schools and choice.

Melvin names names. She calls out “Parents Defending Education,” “Freedom Works,” “Parents Rights in Education,” and “Moms for Liberty,” among others. Some of they may be at work in your state, representing themselves as ordinary parents who want “change.” The change they want is privatization, not better public schools. Before…

Julian Vasquez Heilig, T. Jameson Brewer, and Frank Adamson recently published an analysis of the neoliberal roots of school choice and its spillover into research on school choice.

They begin:

To conceptualize the politics of research on school choice, it is important to first discuss the politics of market- based approaches within the broader purview of public policy. Modern notions of “markets” and “choice” in schooling stem from the libertarian ideas Milton Friedman espoused in the 1950s. As these ideologies escalated in the 1980s under neoliberal theory and Republican orthodoxy, the argument that parents should have choice between competing schools within an education market with little regulation began to crack the public schoolhouse door, allowing an influx of private school vouchers and charter schools.

The ideology of a competitive education market supposes that competition and deregulation are necessary and fundamentally positive forces that will “fix” the “failed” public school…