Years ago, there was buzz about New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s tendency to quote taxi drivers to capture the view of the “man on the street.” Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for public Education, has recently noticed that Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute has a similar journalistic gambit. He picks up policy clues from Uber drivers. She writes: It seems like Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think tank that loves all things school choice, has an extraordinary gift for bringing out the inner Betsy DeVos in every Uber Driver he meets ..read more

Good and Bad Teachers: So Many More of the Former, So Many Fewer of the Latter David C. Berliner  Arizona State University A refereed journal article by colleagues1reported on a survey of adults, asking for their beliefs about “good teachers.” The respondents defined good teachers as those who “knew me, cared about me, and wanted me to do well; created interesting activities for us to do; praised me and other students for good grades and improvements; gave extra help or a challenge to students who ne ..read more

Peter Greene was a classroom teacher for 39 years, and he knows that teachers are overworked. There are not enough hours in the day for them to meet all their obligations. He considers in this post what to do. He certainly does not think that AI or scripted curriculum is the answer. He writes: When I was ploughing through the Pew Center survey of teachers, I thought of Robert Pondiscio. Specifically, it was the part about the work itself. 84% of teachers report that there’s not enough time in the day to get their work done, and among those, 81% said that a major reason was they just ..read more

All are welcome to a very important lecture at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Admission is free. Join me! The speaker is a pioneer of critical race theory. Professor Soo Hong, chair of the Education Department at Wellesley, released the following announcement. We are thrilled to announce that our 2024 Ravitch Lecture in Education will be presented by Professor Patricia Williams ’72, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities at Northeastern University. Professor Williams’s talk is titled, “Burying the Bodies: Book-Banning and the Legacy of Anti-Literacy Laws ..read more

The National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado posted a summary of research about the current “Science of Reading” fad, which finds that the “science” is missing. SoR has turned into another “miracle cure” that is being imposed and mandated by legislatures, anticipating a dramatic result in which “no child is left behind.” NEPC reports: What’s scientific about the “science of reading?” Not much, according to NEPC Fellow Elena Aydarova of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as explained in a recent article published in the peer-refereed Harvard Education ..read more

Michigan, under Republican control for years, has given free rein to charter schools and has long been overrun with unaccountable for-profit schools. But the Governor, Gretchen Whitney, is now a Democrat, and the elected State Board of Education is no longer controlled by Republicans. The State Board took a shocking step this week. It resolved that charter schools should be held to the same rules as public schools. The State Board of Education approved a resolution during its meeting today calling for legislation to open charter schools to be treated more like public schools in the state of Mi ..read more

The one type of school where you are sure to encounter indoctrination is a religious school. That is their purpose, their mission. Religious groups open schools to indoctrinate the young into the precepts of their religion. Public schools do not indoctrinate. They enroll children of many religions, from many different ethnic heritages. They teach students the basics of democracy and citizenship. They teach them about the importance of voting. They teach them about the justice system. Justin Parmenter, award-winning high school teacher in North Carolina, wrote on his blog that his state is fund ..read more

Six conservative Supreme Court justices overruled Roe v. Wade, discrediting a decision that had been in force for half a century. Before the Dobbs decision, American women were able to get an abortion. Today one of every three American women lives in states where abortion has been banned. Here is what the six Justices said about Roe v.Wade at their Senate confirmation hearings ..read more

Peter Greene, retired teacher, is a regular contributor to Forbes, where this article appeared. It’s heartening to know that a business publication is exposing its readers to a veteran teacher who knows what he is talking about. In this article, he cautions champions of “the science of reading not to repeat the same mistakes as Common Core, our last overhyped educational panacea. He writes: Bills mandating the “Science of Reading” have been passing left and right across the nation. While some, like the Pennsylvania bill that passed 201-0, provide gentle nudging and support, others, l ..read more

Robert Kennedy Jr. is a crackpot who is running for President as a spoiler. His name may draw the votes of some disappointed Democrats. His penchant for conspiracy theories may draw some disaffected Trump voters. He has no chance of winning but he has an opportunity to drain away 15% or so of the votes. His choice of Nicole Shanahan as his running mate guarantees him a sound financial footing. She is the ex-wife of Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and is probably a billionaire. She is a lawyer but has no experience in politics or government. The New York Times reported that Robert Kennedy sa ..read more