I have been blogging about public education quite a bit lately for several reasons. The first reason is personal; my children will soon be entering the elementary-school pipeline and I want to know what lies ahead for them. The second reason involves my concerns over President Obama's proposed changes to No Child Left Behind and [...]
I've been hearing so much about budget cuts to public education in the news lately. Last week, there were demonstrations all over the Bay Area protesting the massive budget cuts to public colleges, and secondary and elementary schools throughout California. And these protests weren't just on the college campuses of Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Davis, [...]
Race to the Top is the name given to President Obama's education-reform program that is supposed to change the education system in America. But what it should be called is Race to Nowhere, which happens to be the name of a powerful new documentary by Vicki Abeles that explores, as the film's subtitle states, the [...]
As I described in my recent Race to the Top? series, the need for significant reform of America's public school system is great (Part II), yet the institutional obstacles preventing reform seem even greater (Part III). The challenges of changing a system that is so entrenched came to absurd light from a reader of my [...]
My first two posts in my Race to the Top? Series (Part I and Part II) focused on the effects of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top on children at the top and the bottom of the education food chain. This post will explore several of the more sensitive issues that prevent [...]
In my recent post, Achievement Rat Race a Race to Nowhere, I described the academic achievement rat race in which students near the top of the educational food chain strive maniacally to win (or at least finish). I argued that the emphasis on testing by former President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) and [...]