Highlighted Posts for Monday, July1st:

My Wife is a Teacher 

My wife is a teacher.  I've never once, in the history of our life together, seen her trading derivatives, speculate in real estate, engage in subprime lending practices, or make exorbitant demands on her employer for an outrageous salary.

The hidden costs of charter schools

Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) reaches the same conclusion it did in its previous study: The vast majority of charter schools in the United States are no better than public schools.

 Marketization and Public Engagement in Education

While scholars have examined many aspects of this process, we know far less about the general effects of marketization on public participation in education and local education politics. 

 Kids Count is a National and state-by-state data bank 

By providing high-quality data and trend analysis through its KIDS COUNT Data Center, the Foundation seeks to enrich local, state and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children.

Where U.S. stands in education internationally 

A new report that analyzes education trends in several dozen countries says that the United States is behind in early childhood education.

Duncan Mounts Strongest Defense Yet of Common Core Standards

Duncan's strongest defense yet of the common-standards movement and sought to beat back claims that the federal government has gone too far to encourage the standards' adoption. 

The Story Behind the Common Core Is Different from Duncan's

There is some irony in the fact that Arne Duncan keeps saying that the Core is not the work of the federal government while he, the federal secretary of education, goes around attacking its critics.

ALEC's Legislative Agenda on Education
ALEC's education legislation diverts taxpayers' money from American public school children to for-profit education corporations, strips away the rights of teachers and their ability to negotiate strongly for small class sizes and other practices that help children learn better, and gives more tax breaks to rich corporations and individuals.

Faculty and Students at U. of Minnesota Oppose TFA
  Teach for America contributes to creating more exploitative and precarious working conditions for teachers, often displacing career educators and decreasing job opportunities for our Initial Licensure Program teacher candidates and all preservice teachers who seriously study pedagogy and curriculum before heading into the classroom.  

"I'm From Big Business, and I'm Here to Help!"
Every day we hear of the wondrous future that "innovations" will bring to our schools. However, the track record of these changes has been less than stellar, at least for those of us on the receiving end.

(Posts prior to June 1st, click here.