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Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

“The Scientist,” Coldplay

The absolute greatest gift of being a teacher by profession is accumulating throughout your career the young people gifted you by your classroom.

A few days ago, I was having lunch with a former student and current teacher, Ali Williams, who teaches English at a majority-minority, high-poverty high school in the school district that serves the county where I teach.

Among the ramblings of our nerdfest, we talked about language, about the challenges of trying to be a good teacher, and about the fields of psychology and sociology, a tension that has more and more fascinated me over a thirty-plus years career as a teacher.

For anyone who doesn’t know Ali personally or who has never spent time at her school or with her students (I have had several teacher candidates placed…

This is something new. Two rightwing, pro-voucher advocacy groups are sponsoring a debate on August 19 among Republican hopefuls in Londonderry, Néw Hampshire.

In the past, presidential debates have been sponsored by the League of Women Voters or national television channels. This debate, however, is sponsored by two organizations–Campbell Brown’s “The 74” and Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children–that promote charters and vouchers and oppose teachers unions and tenure.

This would be like holding a debate sponsored by the National Rifle Association, the tobacco industry, or advocates for abortion.

The audience will hear plenty about “our failing schools” but they are not likely to hear that test scores on NAEP are at their highest point ever, as are graduation rates. Or that dropout rates are the lowest ever. Prepare to hear the sponsors rattle on about how terrible our schools are, how lazy and greedy our teacher are, and why…

By Yohuru Williams and Steven Singer

Nearly 18 years ago in his 1997 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton urged Americans to prioritize education. He suggested beginning with building respect for the teaching profession. To “have the best schools,” he observed, “we must have the best teachers.” He continued, “most of us in this chamber would not be here tonight without the help of those teachers.”

Despite Clinton’s eloquence, respect for the teaching profession steadily declined due primarily to a narrative of failure constructed by the proponents of corporate education reform. They consistently blame the power of teachers’ unions and teacher tenure for society’s woes. They use both as a justification to construct a multi-billion dollar industry to standardize and privatize our public schools.

For the most part, the mainstream media has been reluctant to challenge this narrative and point to the real obstacles that…

Great news from NPE!

When award winning principal Carol Burris announced that she was retiring early to dedicate all of her energies to “fighting the assault on our public schools and our teachers,” many wondered how and where she would continue that fight.

There is no need to wonder any longer.

Today NPE President Diane Ravitch announced that Carol Burris will become the new Executive Director of the NPE Fund, NPE’s non-political 501C3.

“The Board of the Network for Public Education is thrilled that Carol Burris has agreed to serve as Executive Director of the NPE Fund. NPE Fund will conduct research, issue policy papers, and communicate to the public about the crucial issues facing public education today. With Carol’s extensive and exemplary experience as a principal, a teacher, and a writer, she is exactly the right person to lead the NPE Fund at this time.”

Burris had this to…

What’s in a publication’s name? Apparently when the publication’s title includes “Education,” the lesson is “reader beware.”

First, the ever-misleadingEducation Next trumpets: Good News for New Orleans, concerning the Recovery School District created post-Katrina, which eradicated public schools in the city.

Essentially and uncritically parroting that piece, Education Week proclaims: New Orleans Test Scores Have ‘Shot Up’ 10 Years After Katrina, Report Says.

We have been here before since mainstream media—even the so-called “liberal media”—are prone to whitewashing the story of disaster capitalism in New Orleans education reform. And I have discussed recently the need to have a nuanced and complicated examination of both public and charter schools, inspired by Andre Perry’s impassioned and blunt confrontation of why black parents have embraced charter schools in New Orleans.

So it is in that spirit that I note, Salon (no “Education” in the title, by the way) has run…

Recently the billionaire Koch brothers launched a public relations drive to show that they are good guys, just like you and me. They even allowed a few reporters to attend their usually super-secret meeting with donors at a luxurious place in California. But they were not allowed to reveal the names of the donors. Forget the fact that they plan to spend nearly a billion dollars on the 2016 Presidential race. Like you and me.

The intrepid Lee Fang reports on that meeting and how it relates to the Koch PR makeover.

Fang writes:

“Billionaire conservative activist Charles Koch on Sunday likened his political efforts to the struggles of Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass, saying that “we, too, are seeking to right injustices that are holding our country back.”

“We know this because Politico and the Washington Post were allowed to attend Charles and David Koch’s fundraiser at…

GSV Advisors is leading the movement to bring investors into public education and to create new companies to profit from public education funding. GSV stands for Global Silicon Valley.

Who are they, you might wonder? Here are their leaders. Note how much they know about investing and building equity. Note how little experience they have as education professionals (none).

Here is what I previously described as a “field guide to the education industry,” produced by GSV.

Here are some of the partnerships they have underwritten.

The founder of GSV is Deborah Quazzo. She is also on the boards of KIPP, Teach for America, and other “reform” (privatization) groups. Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed her to the Chicago Board of Education in 2013 to replace billionaire Penny Pritzker. However, in early 2015, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the public schools had tripled their spending on companies where Quazzo had a…

Mercedes Schneider did some digging into Teach for America’s budget and promotional activities on Capitol Hill and discovered some fascinating facts.

She writes:

“According to its 2013 990, TFA’s end-of-year total assets were $494 million, with $73.5 million of its 2013 revenue designated as “government grants” and $31.6 million of its 2013 revenue earmarked as “service fees revenue….

“For eight hours of work per week, TFA chair Wendy Kopp drew a 2013 salary of $176,657. Co-CEOs Matt Kramer and Elisa Villanueva Beard drew salaries of $381,946 for 42 hrs/wk (Kramer) and $342,134 for 40 hrs/wk (Beard).

“TFA began as a Peace Corps-like temp agency that sends college graduates outside of the field of teaching into classrooms for usually two years. However, by 2001, TFA had established a second goal: To move former TFA corps members into positions of influence in education, business, and politics in order to solidify and expand…

The Common Core State Standards, which promise to make all students college and career ready are way behind the times and will not give our students what they need for their future. At the end of the two-minute video, which I invite you to watch, the competencies that will really make students “college and career ready” are quickly flashed on the screen. Not one of those competencies is a Common Core Standard for English Language Arts.

The competencies are:

• Exploration
• Creativity
• Responsibility
• Cultural Awareness
• Collaboration
• Accountability
• Problem Solving
• Innovation
• Civic Engagement
• Productivity
• Communication
• Initiative
• Leadership

We English teachers know how to develop those competencies. Let’s do it. Reject the Common Core.

If you cannot see the video,  click here.

The Secretary of Education says it. The New York Times says it. The President of the United States says it. So it must be true.

But it isn’t.

They all say that the Common Core State Standards will make graduates of our K-12 schools “college and career ready”

But they won’t.

I know the 42 Common Core Standards for English Language Arts really well.

For reading, those standards and the tests that assess those standards ask high school students to know the information in what they read, to objectively summarize what they read, to recognize elements of fiction such as plot, character, setting, point of view, and theme, to recognize elements in informational texts such as claims and evidence for the claims, to recognize structure in both kinds of texts, and to see how source materials influence later texts.

For writing, those standards and the tests that assess those…