By Michelle Strater Gunderson. I sat in the House of Delegates of the Chicago Teachers Union on Wednesday night waiting to be counted as a yes vote for our April first strike. I was number 39 out of 486. It is not common to be called out individually to vote at our union. Most of our motions are passed through …
By Anthony Cody. The rise of Competency Based Education as a supposed alternative to schooling driven by standardized tests is prompting an interesting debate. I first wrote about CBE last November, in response to a version offered by tech-ed entrepreneur Tom Vander Ark. My primary concern was that teacher and …
By John Thompson. The New York Times’s “Oakland District at Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Education,” by veteran reporter Motoko Rich, clearly explains why the discord brought to Oakland illustrates why corporate reform is a threat to urban schools across the nation. The Broad Academy has …
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 John Thompson. The most serious criticism of my book, A Teacher’s Tale, is that it focuses on the harm done by No Child Left Behind and underemphasizes the threat of corporate school reform. During my fulltime teaching career, however, I saw just one overt example of national reformers trying to impose …
This is the seventh in a series of blog posts focused on the value of art in our lives, and the role art can play in resisting the test and punish model of education. See the intro and links to other posts in the series here. By Susan Harris MacKay. In these times, when the demolition of a place as historic …
By Anthony Cody. A couple of weeks ago, Anderson Cooper asked Hillary Clinton a challenging question. Here is what he asked, followed by her answer: COOPER: Secretary Clinton, you’ve been endorsed by two of the biggest teachers’ unions. There’s an awful lot of great teachers in this country. It’s an …
By Anthony Cody. The candidates for the Democratic nomination for president have not been as specific about their education policies as some of us would like. But we can look back at past statements to get a picture of the shape those policies may take. Last year Hillary Clinton spoke of the Common Core tests as …
By Anthony Cody. Last night at the Democratic presidential debate, attention turned to K12 education. Both candidates addressed two questions. The first came from a Detroit parent. Here is the transcript (thank you to the New York Times): COOPER: I want to bring in Shoniqua Kemp. She’s right here — Ms. Kemp. …
By Anthony Cody. Teacher retirement funds represent the largest amounts of money under the control of working educators. The California State Teacher Retirement System (CalSTRS) is the second wealthiest retirement fund in the nation, with $179.4 billion in assets. CalSTRS counts among its many investments a major …
