Sparking the evolution of education choice
I’m kind of glad the ruckus over the parent trigger is over for now. I continue to believe that despite how mercurial it was, there are far more issues that can unite parents, the press and policymakers, if only we can wall off the static and talk. Perhaps this is[Read More…]
The mom on stage described how she and other low-income parents rode a bus through the darkness – six hours, L.A. to Sacramento, kids still in pajamas – to plead their case to power. In the halls of the legislature, people opposed to the idea of a parent trigger accused[Read More…]
The next few years are critical for education reform, with the implementation of higher standards likely to put tremendous pressure on political leaders to abandon course, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday. “The idea of implementing higher standards, the adoption in 46 states of higher standards, is clearly a[Read More…]
Years ago, the powerful director of a local teachers union told me in no uncertain terms: Differential pay for teachers in high-poverty schools wasn’t a good idea and wouldn’t help poor kids. He called it, and I quoted him, “a glitzy solution.” So what a jolt it was to learn,[Read More…]
Editor’s note: High-poverty schools and low-income families are hurt the most by last-in-first-out layoff policies for teachers. In Los Angeles, groups representing low-income parents filed suit against the practice – and so far, they’re winning. Berkeley law professor and redefinED host Stephen D. Sugarman writes in this post that low-income parents have[Read More…]
It’s a common refrain in ed reform debates: If only more parents would do the right thing, schools would be a lot easier to fix. Especially, it seems, black parents. Whenever I wrote a newspaper story about struggling black students, it was guaranteed to make the web site’s “most commented”[Read More…]
