By John Thompson. Should teachers be allowed to bargain for 12 days of medical and personal leave per year? The teaching profession is 77% female, meaning that they are disproportionately required to find ways to take time off to care for their children or parents. Moreover, many teachers aren’t provided …
By Craig Gordon. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967 In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater [than at any time …
By John Thompson. David Callahan’s The Givers begins with the first politicized think tanks of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the American Enterprise Institute. Callahan may be right and the AEI may have been one of the more intellectually honest of the conservative alternatives to academic research, but still it …
By John Thompson. David Callahan’s The Givers begins with the first politicized think tanks of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the American Enterprise Institute. At least these rightwing organizations were open about their desire to maximize profits. But as Callahan shows, they led the way to neo-liberal …
By John Thompson. As explained in this previous post, I began David Callahan’s The Givers with a commitment to avoid confirmation biases. As he notes, plenty of teachers (like me) detest corporate school reform. But, even if Callahan had concluded that education philanthropists produced significant gains in …
By John Thompson. I began David Callahan’s The Givers with a commitment to avoid three types of confirmation bias. As Callahan observes, plenty of teachers (like me) detest corporate school reform, but if he turned out to be supportive of accountability-driven, competition-driven policies, I shouldn’t let …
By John Thompson. It’s sure fun to watch corporate school reformers forming a circular firing squad. For a generation, conservative and neoliberal reformers sang from the same hymnal, even as they privately suppressed their many internal disagreements. Now, accountability-driven, charter-driven neoliberal …
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 …
