Higher Education and the New Brutalism. In any democratic society, education should be viewed as a right, not an entitlement, says Henry A.
"Let Us Graduate!" Garfield High School Walks Out on Budget Cuts. Seattle's Garfield High School has once again moved into collective struggle!
–and we may to find out today if one of us is to be displaced from the building or if the power of protest has kept us safe from the budget-cut ax for now. The Seattle School District announced on Friday, October 17, that Garfield High School would be forced to cut and transfer one teacher in a core subject area by Friday, October 24—or come up with $92,000. But on Thursday October 23, almost the entire building emptied in a mass walkout of students and educators against the budget cuts and has so far convinced the district to delay the cut. The morning of the walkout, one of my colleagues was in the middle of reading the list of grievances that the rebellious colonists proclaimed against the British in the Declaration of Independence.
A professor’s encounter with two Teach For America recruiters. Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp (The Washington Post) Teach For America is an organization that recruits new college graduates, gives them five weeks of training in a summer institute and then places them in some of America’s neediest schools.
Popular with the Obama administration, TFA has increasingly generated criticism about its limited training program and its requirement that corps members stay only two years in a school. Karen Lewis Has Already Redefined Chicago Politics. She has left the race, but the movement continues to build.
Lewis’s campaign could have offered a template for how a populist message—carried by the right candidate and backed by aggressive grassroots voter registration, education and turnout—can neutralize the oligarchs’ money. The news that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis will not run for mayor of Chicago due to illness is heartbreaking. Speaking as a colleague, comrade and friend, I can say with certainty that Karen Lewis is one of most brilliant and committed labor leaders today.
Why Government Spends More Per Pupil at Elite Private Universities Than at Public Universities. This post first appeared at Robert Reich’s blog.
Imagine a system of college education supported by high and growing government spending on elite private universities that mainly educate children of the wealthy and upper-middle class, and low and declining government spending on public universities that educate large numbers of children from the working class and the poor. In Colorado Schools, a Hands-on Civics Lesson. Teacher, student, and parent protests in suburban Denver drew national attention to a battle against curriculum censorship—but it took several blows to come to this point.
First, the newly elected and ultra-conservative school board majority in Jefferson County came for the teachers and their union. The board rescinded an agreed-upon pay raise and pushed through a new system linking teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests. Then the board diverted millions of dollars, raised for public schools through a ballot measure, to charter school expansion. Then it refused to fund kindergarten expansion that would benefit low-income kids. Free Market Forces Will Not Save US Education. Fans of market forces for education simply don't understand how market forces actually work.
What they like to say is that free market competition breeds excellence. It does not, and it never has. Free market competition breeds excellent marketing. McDonald's did not become successful by creating the most excellent food. Philadelphia teachers lose health benefits after state officials cancel contract. White People Problems: A Critical Response to William Deresiewicz’s “Excellent Sheep”
The overall critique of the education is its... Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog. Louis C.K. blasts the Common Core: “It feels like a dark time” Vergara v. California’s Corporate Heart. Are job protections for teachers to blame for educational underachievement among low-income students of color in California?
The subprime education crisis. The NY Federal Reserve’s Household Debt & Credit Report shows that student debt is rising fast and is now at an all-time high: Household Debt and Credit Developments as of Q4 2013: That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
It shows that lots of young people are signing up for college instead of sitting around at home doing nothing or doing dead-end jobs. The Gates Effect - Special Reports. Leonardo Carrizo for The Chronicle Terry Crosgrove, who works in an Ohio plant that makes Slim Jims, is studying for an associate degree through Southern New Hampshire U.'s competency-based program, which was begun with money from Gates.
In Bill and Melinda Gates's vision for higher education, more students will get a college experience similar to Terry Crosgrove's. Each morning, Mr. My Idea for Higher Ed Reform: Do Nothing. The more I read and think about higher education, our shortcomings, our crises, our threats, and our supposed saviors, the more I come to believe that the best thing we could do in the name of reform is absolutely nothing. Down with the pursuit of “excellence!” Enough with innovation! Leave some of the children behind! New faculty positions versus new PhDs. : The missing piece to changing the university culture : Nature Biotechnology.
Author calls for fight to prevent extinction of the college prof. DULUTH, Minn. (PAI)-"Obstreperous" isn't a word often associated with a teacher, much less a college professor. It more often would be used to describe a teacher's nightmare - a noisy student who's difficult to control. But it was a word Benjamin Ginsberg of John Hopkins University used a number of times at his Sept. 26 presentation to University of Minnesota-Duluth faculty, members of the University Education Association/Education Minnesota, the joint American Federation of Teachers-NEA affiliate in Minnesota. Diane Ravitch: School privatization is a hoax, “reformers” aim to destroy public schools. Four Important Mythbusters About the Common Core. Reform of the Reform. Reform of the Reform. Four Important Mythbusters About the Common Core.