Schools With Large Concentrations of Poverty Can Be High-Performing, But Not Because They Concentrate Poverty
I recently learned that my work has been used as justification by school officials who advocate deliberately concentrating poverty in a few schools. My reaction is dismay. The high-performing, high-poverty schools I write about hold many lessons, but none of them is that we should deliberately create more high-poverty schools. First, the context. In suburban […]
No, You Cannot Test My Child
Dear Local Education Authority (LEA), State Education Authority (SEA), and Federal Education Bureaucrat (FEB?), We are rapidly approaching the annual state-mandated testing ritual in public school, and it has become evident that all of you are a little nervous about that. I know this because you keep sending letters to each other about how important […]
Killing Ed: The Film That Texas Doesn't Want You to See
A new documentary on the Gülen Movement, a mysterious Islamic group operating charter schools throughout the US, premieres today and runs through March 31st at the Cinema Village Theatre in NYC. A pre-release screening earlier this month with translation into Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese drew a diverse crowd of 980 and a standing ovation in […]
Why UC Tuition Hikes Is Everyone's Problem
On May 15th, 2015, history was made for the University of California. Despite threatened tuition hikes by the UC Regents, Governor Jerry Brown and UC President Janet Napolitano reached an agreement that the cost of tuition would be frozen until 2017. Although it was an important victory for the student movements that worked to create […]