By John Thompson. The theme of my previous post on the 2018 Network for Public Education conference was: How Was I Wrong? Let Me Count Some Ways. As I explained, the 2014 NPE conference in Austin hit a nice balance in terms of messaging and research that allowed us Davids to defeat the corporate reform Goliath. I …
By John Thompson. Part One of Two. Read Part Two here. The theme of the Network for Public Education’s fifth annual conference was that corporate reformers have lost the “David versus Goliath” battle over public education. We public school supporters have defeated the privatization campaign known as …
By Anthony Cody. Short, punchy films with a message have become one of the most powerful ways the movement to resist high stakes tests has spread the word. You might have seen parents from New York speaking from the heart about their experience, about what has driven them to resist and opt out of these tests. Some …
By Anthony Cody. There is less than a month to go before the third annual Network for Public Education conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. These are always special events, but this year will be especially significant because of the focus on civil rights. The full conference schedule is online now here. Here are …
By Anthony Cody. Under President Obama, the federal Department of Education offered several billion dollars in Race to the Top money and waivers from NCLB to states and school districts across the country in exchange for redesigning teacher evaluation processes. The feds required that a significant portion of …
By Anthony Cody. Public schools are in the midst of a war of attrition over their control – and even the very institution of public education is in danger. There is a sort of pincer assault under way, with billionaires on the far right pushing for complete de-regulation, and others, like the Gates Foundation, …
By Anthony Cody. The last weekend of April I joined about 600 other history-makers in the great city of Chicago for the second annual conference of the Network for Public Education. It has been said that American attitudes towards education are like a pendulum, swinging from one side to another. If so, this was a …
