Tag Archives: schools

If competition is good for education, how about the police?

Police and community
We expect the police to be close to the population that they serve to create order and peace. Photo Credit: class M planet via Compfight cc

If competition would improve public education, would it also improve police services?

Certainly with issues of public policing continuing to rise throughout the U.S. from Ferguson, Missouri to Baltimore, Maryland, the question about how to improve policing is rising along with concerns.

But we have not heard much of anything about creating private competition for publicly-funded police departments as a way of improving them.

If, as school choice advocates maintain, competition is good and transformative for public services like education, why not for the police?
Continue reading If competition is good for education, how about the police?

Book Review: Our City, Our Kids — by Ben Felder

New Ben Felder Book


The concluding two sentences in Ben Felder’s new book Our City, Our Kids is an unmistakable commitment to public schools in Oklahoma City:

Any Failure in the Oklahoma City Public School district is our failure as a community and city. These are our schools, and these are our kids.

A prolific journalist covering everything in the core of Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma Gazette reporter has used his extensive knowledge of Oklahoma City Public Schools to fashion a very efficient 50 page book that succeeds as a quick source of information and a call to action for residents of the central part of the Oklahoma City metro.

The key question that he addresses is this: What should residents of the central part of Oklahoma City know, think, and do about their school district whether they have children or not? Continue reading Book Review: Our City, Our Kids — by Ben Felder

OK House Ed Comm Dismantles Sloppy “Predator” Bill

Ok Legislature, Biggs, Virgin, Canady
Representatives Virgin (L) and Cannady ask Rep. Scott Biggs questions about SB 301 Monday, March 30 |Photos by Brett Dickerson

OKLAHOMA CITY — It was a tough Monday morning for Oklahoma Rep. Scott Biggs (R-Dist. 51) as he tried to sell SB 301 to skeptical GOP and Democratic House members in the Education Committee*.

The bill is intended to establish a dedicated investigator of the state Board of Education to make sure that teachers suspected of being “sexual predators” can’t move from one school district to another when legal prosecutions fall apart.

But the committee wasn’t buying it — not even the Republicans.

Continue reading OK House Ed Comm Dismantles Sloppy “Predator” Bill

Investors Resist Idea of Society as Stakeholder in Public Education

school, charter, district, new orleans, investors,
An Algebra II class at New Orleans’ Sci Academy in October 2010. The school has been a part of the Recovery School District, the first all-charter district in the nation. Credit: John McCusker, The Times-Picayune

Parents are key stakeholders in any child’s education. Does that mean that they are the only stakeholders? One upon a time in America most people would say “no”. They would say that it’s all of society. But not anymore. Investors are what has changed that equation. Continue reading Investors Resist Idea of Society as Stakeholder in Public Education

Front Page Editorial on Reading Tests Disguised as a News Report

test, pencil, test-taking, testing


Descending to the level of propaganda, a front page story in today’s edition of The Oklahoman and the 3:00 update of the story on NewsOK.com reported this about students in Oklahoma City Public Schools who failed the controversial 3rd grade reading tests in April: Continue reading Front Page Editorial on Reading Tests Disguised as a News Report

Barresi Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving for Anti-reform Education Activists

Barresi Superintendent
Janet Barresi, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction

Activism becomes easier if there is a big figure who is openly defiant and antagonistic toward the position of the activists. Think Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War or Richard Nixon during the end of the anti-war protests and the Watergate hearings.

State Superintendent for Public Instruction Janet Barresi has been that bigger-than-life, openly hostile, antagonistic figure for anti-reform education activists in Oklahoma. Rather than coming from some experience of education in her background, she is a dentist who suspended her practice to run for the position.

Continue reading Barresi Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving for Anti-reform Education Activists