By Anthony Cody. Here is where we stand with the revived controversy over the Los Angeles Times’ 2010 “investigation” into teacher effectiveness. In 2009, Teachers College, which sponsors The Hechinger Report, received a grant from the Gates Foundation in the amount of $652,493 in order “to support the …
By Anthony Cody. A fresh debate has emerged in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Times’ critique of the Gates Foundation’s education reform project. As I noted here, they seem to have forgotten their own role in promoting the Gates Foundation’s efforts – namely, their “Teachers investigation,” in which …
By John Thompson. My first response to “The Push and Pull of Research: Lessons from a Multi-site Study of Research Use in Education Policy,” by Christopher Lubienski, Elizabeth Debray, Janelle Scott, was clichéd. Being an optimist, I’ve kept asking why education research is misused so badly, and when smart …
By Anthony Cody. This week the Los Angeles Times published an editorial chastising the Gates Foundation for their role in education reform. The editors wrote: …the Gates Foundation has spent so much money — more than $3 billion since 1999 — that it took on an unhealthy amount of power in the setting of …
By Anthony Cody. I noticed an interesting phenomenon on some progressive web sites over the past week or two. Even with the California and New Jersey primaries still looming a couple of weeks from now, the focus has shifted to supporting Clinton, and news of Sanders has been put on the back burner. A look at the …
By Anthony Cody. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the CEO of the Gates Foundation, has released her first annual letter, describing the foundation’s work in a number of arenas around the world. In the US, their focus has been K-12 education, so here we have their appraisal of their own work. This summary is notable more …
By Anthony Cody. The Bernie Sanders candidacy offers the American people several important opportunities that should not be missed. First and foremost, he offers us the chance to put forth a principled candidate as the Democratic nominee. If this is accomplished then we can begin the hard work of reclaiming the …
By Anthony Cody. Will mainstream reporters take note of the following story? The testing giants behind the PARCC test are doing their best to squash any discussion of the content or quality of their all-powerful instruments. They have added an eleventh commandment to the tablets Moses brought down the mountain, …
By John Thompson. Diane Ravitch observes that “reformers almost always have a soft landing in a cushy job, even when their previous endeavor was a dud.” Chris Barbic failed in leading the Achievement School District in Tennessee but, “No matter. Barbic now works for the John Arnold Foundation in what must be …
By Anthony Cody (and Anonymous). I received the following message from a reader this morning. With his permission, I am sharing it here, followed by my own thoughts: I just applied to Downey Unified School District in Southern California and was referred to the Teachermatch website to take the “EPI” …
