It is worth remembering that until 2002, our society did not test all children in grades 3-8 and once in high school and compare the aggregate scores from school to school as a way to rate and rank public schools. School districts could choose to test students with standardized tests to measure what they had […]
Today is the holiday set aside for reflection on the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Peter Greene’s new history of the ruination of Pennsylvania’s Chester Upland Public Schools, published last week in Forbes, ought to be required reading on this holiday to remind us how badly our society has stumbled along the […]
This blog will take a late summer break. Look for a new post on Wednesday, September 11, 2019. In a blog post on Monday, Diane Ravitch warned: “Colorado be very afraid.” She is commenting on a decision by the state board of education in Colorado to hire a for-profit education management company to take over […]
If you are a proponent of the Jeb Bush-“Chiefs for Change” model of corporate school reform, you conceptualize school governance in terms of tough management overriding the interests of local educators who are said to be unable to handle the inevitable and often competing pressures within a community. In its formula for state takeover of […]
This blog will take a one-week, mid-summer break. Look for a new post on Monday, August 5. We are in the midst of a wave of state school takeovers. On Tuesday evening In Providence, Rhode Island, the state Council of Elementary and Secondary Education granted the authority for Rhode Island’s recently appointed State Education Commissioner, […]
Through the month of June, Michigan’s new governor, Gretchen Whitmer threatened to close Benton Harbor’s high school due to falling enrollment, low test scores and the school district’s indebtedness. Benton Harbor is among Michigan’s extremely poor, majority-African American school districts on which, under former governor Rick Snyder, the state imposed emergency fiscal managers. Benton Harbor […]
States continue to impose punitive school closures and state takeovers on school districts that serve the poorest children. While the Ohio Senate tinkers with language to embed a new state takeover plan for struggling school districts into the FY 2020-2021 biennial state budget, Michigan plans to shut down Benton Harbor’s high school before June 30, […]
Buried in news about the hurricanes, several in-depth articles have explored the emergence, growth and impact of school privatization. There has also been fine reporting on the retreat from school integration and multicultural studies in public schools. This blog’s four posts this week will highlight important reports that trace how public policy in education has […]
