Category Archives: Education

Education

Charter Schools to Be Defining Issue of Okla State Superintendent Race

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Democrats had two unusually good choices in this runoff race for the State Superintendent nomination between two long-time, dedicated education leaders: Freda Deskin and John Cox, the winner.

Now it is a race between John Cox and Joy Hofmeister. Both have a long track record of personal integrity. Both have a long track record of dedication to educational leadership and compassion for children. Both are highly personable, winsome, likeable people who understand the motivations of teachers and administrators.

Check.

Unless Hofmeister shifts positions, what will distinguish these two candidates will be their stance on “reform” as ALEC defines it, which means corporate charter schools and management corporations profiting at taxpayer expense.

Continue reading Charter Schools to Be Defining Issue of Okla State Superintendent Race →

Education

The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 1 — New Orleans

It’s now clear that not everyone in American society has suffered equally or at all from charter school experiments.

While claiming to help the poor and people of color, in fact, corporate charters and their management companies have done the poor the most harm where those charters were given the most freedom and protection from the state.

In those instances, charter school corporations have aggressively pursued their own financial interests on the backs of taxpayers, while carefully avoiding accountability. And they have done this at the expense of poor children of color and their neighborhoods.

In this series of three posts —The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments, I will focus on three instances of corporation schools experimenting with their organizational models at the expense of poor children with little regard for the children’s future.

Let’s start with the longest running example:

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Education

Poverty Is Still a Huge Issue for Students – Michelle Rhee Is Still Wrong

Michelle Rhee
Michelle Rhee – Credit: Education Week

Never really getting true reform, Michelle Rhee has stepped down from her role as the leading spokesperson for the corporation schools front organization Students First.

She held fast to an ideology – yes, ideology and not data – that denies the power of poverty in interrupting  poor students’ education. Instead, she focused on schools and teachers that serve those areas of high poverty. She placed blame liberally on teachers, insisting that with better teaching, poor students could succeed in spite of their poverty.

Continue reading Poverty Is Still a Huge Issue for Students – Michelle Rhee Is Still Wrong →

Education

School Discipline Policies are Where the Anger Begins for Too Many Black Americans

Ferguson, Missouri protest, Aug 16th, Credit: CBS News
Ferguson, Missouri protest, Aug 16th, Credit: CBS News

What we are seeing in Ferguson, Missouri and in other cities is, in part, a direct outgrowth of misguided school suspension/expulsion policies over the last 50 years.

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Education

Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part 2 — Your First Year

3 oclock high - Jerry Mitchell

After you have worked your way through the prep and first few days of your new job teaching alternative school, what next?

During that first year, your teaching abilities will change and grow as never before because the students won’t allow it to be any other way!

In any setting, teaching causes you to grow  personally and professionally.

But, in alternative school, that is a hyper process. The demands of these students are bigger and more pressing than students who you might have taught in student teaching or in earlier teaching positions.

In those two big areas of teacher growth here are my ideas about surviving your first year teaching alternative school.

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Education

Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part I — The First Days

The-Breakfast-Club-1985-001

Out of the 16 years that I spent teaching in public schools, 6 were spent teaching in alternative schools. I know some stuff that might help.

This is my good news for you about teaching in alternative school:

The pressure will make you a far better teacher than you ever would have been if you had spent the same amount of time in a traditional school with seemingly compliant students.

Continue reading Survival Guide to Teaching Alternative School, Part I — The First Days →

Education

Police Cannot Be An Occupying Army in a Democracy

Credit: Reuters
Credit: Reuters

It’s clear by now that the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, went way too far. How do we have local police dressing up in hardened riot gear and using military-style weapons as well as military-style vehicles? How is it considered wise to start with that response at the first sign of trouble?

It hasn’t always been that way. There are great examples of effective policing that allows for free speech and assembly and protects those rights.

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Education

Competition — Big Businesses Want It For Public Schools While They Hate It for Themselves!

“Vote to let us destroy publicly owned schools (that allow access to all) so that we can skim profits from educating only the most well-adjusted students at taxpayer expense.”

How do you think that would go over? It wouldn’t. That’s why we hear a much more subtle, carefully staged argument.

Continue reading Competition — Big Businesses Want It For Public Schools While They Hate It for Themselves! →