By John Thompson. Anthony Cody’s The Educator and the Oligarch recalls his 2012 debate with representatives of the Gates Foundation. He summarized the work of education scholar Linda Darling-Hammond, mathematician John Ewing, and the American Statistical Association when explaining why value-added models …
By Anthony Cody. When I visited the Gates Foundation a few years ago, one phrase stuck with me. “You can only manage what you can measure,” I was told. This is the underlying framework of our 21st century accountability paradigm. On the 2008 presidential primary campaign trail, candidates Obama and …
By Anthony Cody. Returning from protesting the Gates Foundation’s funding of corporate education reform, I have been wrestling with some questions about the goals for their project. The Gates Foundation’s Vicki Phillips was interviewed the day of the protest, and had this to say about it: At the …
By Anthony Cody. A basic question is emerging as our schools are urged to embrace the Common Core State Standards and the computer-based learning systems aligned to the standards. Are these digital devices becoming central to the classroom—and coming to dominate the way we teach and learn? And how will this …
What follows is a presentation made on October 11, 2014, at the Public Education Nation event, hosted by the Network for Public Education. The entire panel discussion can be viewed here. By Wendy Lecker. I have come to think of the charter school movement as a failed experiment on our children. In terms of their …
By Francesca Blueher. Six years ago, I administered a 12 hour, 100-page test that could not be read by a single student who was mandated to take it. This test, the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment (NMSBA), was composed of multiple choice questions; reading passages to be answered with short responses; …
By Tony Monfiletto. I am a former school principal and I currently lead an incubator for new schools in my home town, Albuquerque New Mexico. The schools are focused on Project-Based Learning as a way to provide a thrilling and relevant education to young people who are off track to graduation or who have dropped …
What follows is a presentation made at the Network for Public Education’s October 11, 2014 event, PUBLIC Education Nation. The entire panel can be viewed on video here. By Rosa Rivera-McCutchen. In thinking about my remarks for today’s panel, I thought it useful to draw upon Dr. Martin Luther King, …
By Michelle Gunderson with Katie Osgood. Who in the world believes there is justice in telling a six year old that they are average – are a C? The whole definition of being six is to be someone who is extraordinary. When you ask first graders if they can dance – they say yes. If you ask first graders if they …
By Anthony Cody. It has been a bit of a challenge this past decade to maintain a spirit of hope in the face of the immense concentration of wealth and power we have seen. I do not need to remind you of the details – we all know the big picture. But I have, for the past four years or so, been focused on the role …
