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A Ray of Hope: On Tipping Points and Pushing Back

August 18, 2010 by

Anthony Cody taught science in Oakland, CA, for 18 years and now blogs regularly on teaching and education in Education Week. I wanted to share his Aug. 15 post, “This is How a Tipping Point Feels,” for its note of optimism and thoughtful analysis of the opportunities we face as we try to push the education policy pendulum back toward something reasonable and helpful for our children.

It’s worth reading the whole thing, which mentions a recent oped by influential Washington Post writer Dana Milbank, which calls out President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan for expanding “the importance of standardized testing to determine how much teachers will be paid, which educators will be fired and which schools will be closed — despite evidence that such practices are harmful. In the process, he’s offended just about all the liberals involved in or advocating for education without gaining much support from conservatives.”   → Read More

Filed Under: Education

Thanks for a successful conference!

August 6, 2010 by

The Citizens for Public Schools Annual Fall Issues Conference exceeded our high expectations for the quality of the speakers, attendees and ideas generated for change. Thanks to all whose hard work and great ideas made it such a success.

Stay tuned for a special Fall Issues Conference edition of the Backpack, coming soon to an email address and web site near you!   → Read More

Filed Under: Conference, Education

Civil Rights, Community-based Groups Signal New Education Consensus; MCAS study finds ‘teachers are not to blame’

August 3, 2010 by

Three timely and significant reports have been released in the past few weeks that signal a promising change in the public debate on education. A coalition of major national civil rights groups and another of community-based organizations have issued statements and recommendations strongly critical of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top initiative, signaling a growing consensus that it’s time for a change in direction from the education policies initiated by President Bush and continued by Duncan and President Obama. And a new MCAS study reported in Commonwealth Magazine undermines the idea that we simply need to get rid of bad teachers to turn around “failing schools.” All three are worth reading and supporting.

The civil rights groups’ statement, titled “”Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn” says, in part:

“The Race to the Top Fund and similar strategies for awarding federal education funding will ultimately leave states competing with states, parents competing with parents, and students competing with other students…..

   → Read More
Filed Under: Achievement Gap, Charter Schools

New study finds no clear edge for charters

June 29, 2010 by

Education Week reports on June 29, 2010 on a new national study of charter middle schools. The  report begins:

Students who won lotteries to attend charter middle schools performed, on average, no better in mathematics and reading than their peers who lost out in the random admissions process and enrolled in nearby regular public schools, according to a national study released today.

The federally commissioned study, involving 2,330 students who applied to 36 charter middle schools in 15 states, represents the first large-scale randomized trial of the effectiveness of charter schools across several states and rural, suburban, and urban locales. The charter schools in the sample conducted random lotteries for admissions, so that only chance determined who attended.

The full article is here.

The study is here.   → Read More

Filed Under: Charter Schools

Pauline Lipman: The Attack on Public Education

June 18, 2010 by

Pauline Lipman is Professor of Policy Studies in the College of Education, University of Illinois-Chicago. Professor Lipman presented a powerful keynote at Saving Our Schools: Defending Public Education, a  March 27 conference co-sponsored by Citizens for Public Schools and the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts (PHENOM). Coming from Chicago, former home of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Lipman described the devastating consequences of Duncan’s privatization efforts as CEO of Chicago public schools. She exhorted the audience to keep at the forefront a vision of what we want for our public schools:

We need more than opposition to what we are against. Forging a social movement to defend public education means defining what we are for. It is not surprising that some parents and students in Chicago are not enthusiastic about defending public education. Public schools, like other public services (think public assistance, public hospitals, the police) have a deeply flawed record of exclusion, disrespect, racism, hostility, even violence for working class and low-income people of color.

   → Read More
Filed Under: Conference, Education
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