NewsTrust - Education Reform - Most Recent Stories

How Predatory Reformers Are Destroying Education and Profiting at Our Children's Expense

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Michael Gecan - Jun. 16 (Special Report) - Local people, connected to their communities, built successful schools based in large part on this pragmatic principle. But today this principle is undercut by political demands for ever-shifting versions of reform, by market demands for efficiency, by smothering student debt loads, and by the mistaken priorities of colleges racing for prestige. The debate over improving education—in the Midwest and throughout the country—often seems hopeless, but it turns out that we have long known what to do and are now suffering from the abandonment of the good methods we once pioneered and practiced.

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New Data Shows School 'Reformers' Are Getting it Wrong

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

billmoyers.com - By David Sirota - Jun. 11 (News Report) - In the great American debate over education, the education and technology corporations, bankrolled politicians and activist-profiteers who collectively comprise the so-called “reform” movement base their arguments on one central premise: that America should expect public schools to produce world-class academic achievement regardless of the negative forces bearing down on a school’s particular students. In recent days, though, the faults in that premise are being exposed by unavoidable reality.

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Chicago to Shutter 50 Public Schools: Is Historic Mass Closure an Experiment in Privatization?

Tue, 28 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Amy Goodman Juan Gonzalez - May. 28 (Interview) - As the academic year winds down, a record number of Chicago schools are preparing to close their doors for good in the largest mass school closing ever in one U.S. city. Last week, the Chicago Board of Education voted to close 50 of the city's public schools in a move that will impact some 30,000 students, around 90 percent of them African American. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pushed for the closures in order to save the city more than $500 billion, half of its deficit. "Rahm Emanuel actually does not have an educational plan, he has an economic development plan," says our guest Diane Ravitch.

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Punishing Students For Not Making Eye Contact? How Charter Schools' Prejudiced Policies Undermine Equality

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - May. 26 (Special Report) - not only do charter schools fail children of color and students with disabilities, they often actively work against them as they try to transform students into what they imagine is the status quo. From outrageous fees to strict disciplinary codes, charter schools continuously work to target students they don't want.

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Who Is Profiting From Charters? The Big Bucks Behind Charter School Secrecy, Financial Scandal and Corruption

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By kristin Rawls - May. 11 (Investigative Report) - Studies shows that charter schools don’t typically outperform public schools and they often tend to increase racial and class segregation. So one must wonder, what exactly is motivating these school “reformers”? And why have they pushed for more and more closure — and new charter schools — at such an unprecedented rate in recent years?

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Op-Ed Columnist: The Professors’ Big Stage

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:52:00 -0800

New York Times - By By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN - Mar. 06 (Opinion) - I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses.

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Toddler Math | New Republic

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

newrepublic.com - By Jonathan Cohn - Feb. 18 (News Analysis) - President Obama's preschool proposal has provoked predictable grousing from some predictable sources. House Speaker John Boehner said last week that getting the federal government involved in early childhood was "a good way to screw it up." But the idea is also picking up some support on the right. "President Obama has taken on a big challenge in a realistic and ambitious way," New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote on Friday. "If Republicans really believe in opportunity and local control, they will get on board." And at least one Republican, Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, seems ready to join the cause. On Saturday, while appearing on MSNBC’s "Up with Chris Hayes," Isakson called universal preschool "a great idea."

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You can't sell us on charters

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

socialistworker.org - By Rory Fanning - Feb. 10 (Comment) - In front of a largely African American and Latino crowd, Hampton finally handed the microphone over to the all-white, suit-clad lineup of analysts from Loran Marketing Group. They picked up where Hampton left off and began to inaudibly outline the CPS/Walton Foundation "vision" for Chicago schools. The slides--seemingly intended to sedate the audience--were blanketed in impossible-to-read fine print and graphs. At first, much of the audience didn't know what to make of the interruptions, but soon a majority was stomping their feet, clapping their hands,and yelling in unison: "No charters!" "The money is there!" "You have money to arrest our kids, but none to educate them!" "The people united will never be defeated!" and "They say cut back. We say fight back!"

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The Secret To Fixing Bad Schools

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By DAVID L. KIRP - Feb. 09 (Opinion) - The striking achievement of Union City, N.J. — bringing poor, mostly immigrant kids into the educational mainstream — argues for reinventing the public schools we have.

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Charter Schools That Start Bad Stay Bad, Stanford Report Says

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Joy Resmovits - Jan. 31 (News Report) - "There are very predictable lanes on quality, and once you get into a lane, a new school tends to not move very much," said Macke Raymond, the economist in charge of the university's Center for Research on Education Outcomes institute and an author of the report. "High stays high and low stays low."

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Obama So Far: Making History, Inspiring An Opposition

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

All Things Considered - By Frank James - Jan. 20 (Opinion) - Barack Obama was always going to have a place in history as the first African-American president. That's no small feat given the nation's peculiar past. But achieving what other Democratic presidents couldn't fueled deep divisions within the country and set the table for a second term with daunting challenges.

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Finland's educational success story: Less testing, more trusting

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

seattletimes.com - By Linda Shaw - Nov. 15 (News Report) - Finland, in other words, has become an education star by doing the opposite of what's happening in many U.S. schools and school districts,

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The Right's 'School Choice' Scheme

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Nov. 04 (Special Report) - In June 1995, the economist Milton Friedman wrote an article for the Washington Post promoting the use of public education funds for private schools as a way to transfer the nation’s public school systems to the private sector. "Vouchers," he wrote, "are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a market system."

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Why Do Some of America’s Wealthiest Individuals Have Fingers in Louisiana’s Education System?

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Matthew Cunningham-Cook - Oct. 17 (Investigative Report) - Last fall, a coterie of extremely wealthy billionaires, among them New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, turned the races for unpaid positions on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) into some of the most expensive in the sta

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Transcript: First Obama-Romney Presidential Debate

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

All Things Considered - Oct. 04 (Speech) - Transcript of the first debate between President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

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Why Don't Americans Care About Democracy at Home?

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Henry A. Giroux - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - economic darwinism will...ensure the ...eventual elimination of those...willing to fight for public values, rights, spaces and institutions not wedded to the logic of privatization, commodification, deregulation.. we are seeing the breakdown of democracy...

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Both sides still optimistic as Chicago teachers strike enters 5th day

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Ellen Jean Hirst, Bridget Doyle, Jennifer Delgado, Joel Hood - Sep. 14 (News Report) - The Chicago teachers strike enters its fifth day as "number crunching" apparently delayed a deal that both sides had hoped would be reached on Thursday.

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Striking Teachers, Parents Join Forces to Oppose "Corporate" Education Model in Chicago

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Phil Cantor, Rhoda Rae Gutierrez - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - To discuss the Chicago teachers' strike, we're joined by two guests: Phil Cantor, a teacher and strike captain at Chicago's North-Grand High School and member of Teachers for Social Justice, and Rhoda Rae Gutierrez, the mother of two public school students in Chicago and a member of the grassroots group Parents for Teachers. [includes rush transcript]

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Everything You've Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kristina Rizga - Aug. 22 (Investigative Report) - Attendance: up. Dropout rates: plummeting. College acceptance: through the roof. My mind-blowing year inside a "low-performing" school.

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Journalism education cannot teach its way to the future

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Poynter Institute - By Howard Finberg - Jun. 16 (Opinion) - As we think about the changes whipping through the media industry, there is a nearby storm about to strike journalism education. The future of journalism education will be a very different and difficult future, a future that is full of innovation and creative disruption. And, I believe, we will see an evolution and uncoupling between the value of a journalism education and a journalism degree. When we think about the future, there’s not a single future. The future for a 20-year-old is clearly very different than the future of a 60-year-old. Each will bring a very different perspective. The future of journalism education is linked to the future of journalism itself. Each is caught within the other’s vortex, both spinning within today’s turmoil of change. The disruption in the economic models of news organizations, rippling out from the United States to Europe and elsewhere, is well documented.

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How the Young Are Indoctrinated to Obey

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Noam Chomsky - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - many measures have been taken to restore discipline. One is the crusade for privatization – placing control in reliable hands. Another is sharp increases in tuition, up nearly 600 percent since 1980. These produce a higher education system with "far more economic stratification than is true of any other country," according to Jane Wellman, former director of the Delta Cost Project, which monitors these issues. Tuition increases trap students into long-term debt and hence subordination to private power.

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Florida Public Charter School Linked To Scientology

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Feb. 29 (News Report) - The school's Christmas party, for example, was held at a Scientology church in Tampa. The students were given Scientology books and DVDs, shown a play written by Hubbard and photographed with Santa Claus in front of a Scientology cross. Teachers were also required to attend training sessions at Scientology's flagship resort to be educated in Smart Way, a program designed by Scientologists, and were told they had no choice but to implement study tech in their curriculum. From the Times:

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The "Shock Doctrine" Comes to Your Neighborhood Classroom

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By David Sirota - Sep. 06 (News Analysis) - "Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform." -- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times.

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Failed Education Reform in Chile Prompts Hunger Strikes, Protests by Thousands of Students

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Aug. 04 (News Report) - They are demanding an end to privatized education in Chile, which has left generations of students deep in debt.

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In Pennsylvania, Suspicious Erasing on State Exams at 89 Schools

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Michael Winerip - Aug. 02 (News Analysis) - In April, Dale Mezzacappa attended a panel discussion on cheating sponsored by the Education Writers Association. At the time, she was one of three staff reporters for The Notebook, a community newspaper and Web site that covers the Philadelphia public schools.

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