Author Archives: Lloyd Lofthouse

We saw this coming. The charter movement, widely praised in the press, opened the door to school choice and consumerism. Now, as we see in Oklahoma, the state may soon have its first Catholic school charter. When the charter movement started, it promised that charter schools would be innovative, accountable, cost less than public schools and be transparent. As we have repeatedly seen, charter schools are not innovative, avoid accountability, demand the same or greater funding than public schools, and are not transparent.

Oklahoma shows where the charter movement is heading: charter schools are becoming a pathway to vouchers.

A Catholic charter school funded by taxpayer dollars is likely coming to Oklahoma soon, based on a recent ruling of the state’s outing attorney general, with support from the re-elected governor and off newly elected state superintendent of public education.

For decades, Baptists have fought against public funding of parochial…

David Berliner and Carl Hermanns edited a book about the value and importance of public schools in a democratic society. Its title is Public Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy, and it was published by Teachers College Press. I was one of the contributors, along with other well-known figures in the field.

The book would be a terrific Christmas gift for an educator.

This review will give you a good look at the contents.

Public Education is a 346-page book containing 29 chapters penned by some of America’s most eminent scholars, including Diane Ravitch, Jennie Oakes, Sonia Nieto, H. Richard Milner, Deborah Meier, Ken Zeichner, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Michael Apple, William Ayers, and of course, co-editor David Berliner. The late Mike Rose has a chapter in the book as does Edward Fiske, the longtime New York Times education reporter and author of the ubiquitous Fiske Guide to Colleges.

While…

Thom Hartmann is a journalist and blogger who hits the nail on the head with this post. I would add one suggestion to his post, under the heading of “what can I do?” Run for your local school board. Don’t let wacky rightwing extremists buy it.

Former Tea Party congressman and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently put a bulls-eye on the back of the president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers.

“I tell the story often — I get asked ‘Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?’” PompeotoldSemafor’s Shelby Talcott.

“The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call. If you ask, ‘Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?’ It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids…”

I’ve known, respected, and admired…

This post is so important that it is the only one I have scheduled today. Please read it and share it with your friends, your local newspaper, your local radio station, your elected representatives, social media, anyone who cares about the future of our society. This is not a reprint. The author, Josh Cowen, wrote this post for this blog.

Josh Cowen, a professor at Michigan State University, has been studying vouchers for more than 20 years. He has been a member of the teams conducting major studies of vouchers. When I read his article in The Hechinger Report, where he declared that he was convinced that vouchers were disastrous for students who use them, I wanted to know more about him and his experience. I wanted to ask him, “Why did you change your mind?” That’s the question that’s been asked of me hundreds of times. I have…

Back in 2014, a prominent charter school leader in Connecticut resigned after it was revealed that he had been convicted of felonies many years earlier, and that he did not have a doctorate, although he claimed he did. Michael Sharpe resigned as CEO of Jumoke Academy, which ran charter schools in Connecticut and planned to expand to Louisiana.

Sharpe was part of a management organization called Family Urban Schools of Excellence or FUSE, created in 2012. The state had given millions of dollars to Jumoke to take over low-performing schools and turn them around.

The controversy over Sharpe was embarrassing to Democratic Governor Dannell Malloy, who was a cheerleader for charter schools. Malloy chose Stefan Pryor to be the State Commissioner of Education. Pryor had no experience in the classroom but was a co-founder of the no-excuses charter chain Achievement First. Charter schools in the state were allowed to have…

In 2001, libertarian political scientist Jason Sorens proposed the creation of a “free state.” He appealed to other libertarians to cluster in one small state, where enough of them would be able to eliminate laws and authority and “live free.” That state was New Hampshire, and the libertarians have joined hands with Republicans to impose their agenda on others who don’t share it. Earlier this spring, Free Staters proposed that New Hampshire secede and became an independent nation, but that proposal failed overwhelmingly, in part because enough people realized it was nutty and/or they didn’t want to give up their Social Security.

Dan Barry wrote in The New York Times about an effort by Free Staters in Croydon, New Hampshire, to cut the town’s school budget in half.

As is typical in many towns and cities across the nation, not many people show up for local elections, or in this…

Make no mistake: the changes to the federal Charter Schools Program a few days ago was a big win for supporters of public schools and a major defeat for the charter lobby, led by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

The Network for Public Education was proud to lead the fight to reform the Charter Schools Program, which started in 1994 as a tiny program to help jumpstart new charters but turned into a slush fund to pump federal money into giant charter chains like KIPP, IDEA, and Success Academy, all of which are very well funded by their billionaire board members and friends.

The charter lobby, overflowing with cash, bought ads on major television programs to fight the Department’s effort to regulate the federal funding of charters, especially the proposed exclusion of for-profit charter operators. The Network for Public Education did not have millions or even hundreds of…