Privatization
Budget & Finance
Reported Essay
What Does It Actually Mean for Schools to Be Public?
There’s a conflict between how we fund public education and its public purpose.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
The Coronavirus Just Might End School Privatization Nonsense
The pandemic has boosted appreciation for public schools; the next step is greater funding, argues education historian and activist Diane Ravitch.
Accountability
Opinion
How to Define Public Schooling in the Age of Choice?
Schools must meet these five responsibilities to truly be defined as “public,” writes education professor Sarah M. Stitzlein.
Social Studies
Opinion
Choice as a Catalyst Starts with Public Relationships
In a world where "informational" has replaced "relational" in education as well as everywhere else, we begin a democratic awakening by recalling and promoting public relationships.
Teaching
Opinion
Putting the Public Back in Public Education—From Protest to Public-Making
Privatization of higher education -- from the Trump education team and other forces - feeds on private processes. To reverse the trends we need to put the public back in public education, broadly defined.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Civil Rights Hero: 'Charters Are an Important Part of the Answer'
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, explained "I'm deeply grateful" to people involved in the charter school movement. "Charters are an important part of the answer" to what American children, especially low income and children of color need. She also stressed the importance of effective district, as well as chartered public schools.
Teaching
Opinion
A New, Better Deal for Teachers and Families
Many public school educators are frustrated. Fortunately, there's a growing movement to give teachers, along with families, a new, better deal. This empowers teachers to create, as options, new schools that reflect their views about how schools should be organized.
Teaching
Opinion
Confronting School Reforms That Work Against Democracy
Meier: Does a climate of fear help create excuses for more and more emergencies that can't be turned over to "the people"?
Budget & Finance
Opinion
The Dangers of the Common Core
Meier: As long as we see standards as 'The Standards' we will face this danger—and especially if who is right/wrong is based on impact on test scores designed by the same people who have mandated the standards.
Ed-Tech Policy
Opinion
Paul Horton: Will the Market Destroy Public Education?
Public schools and public teachers have been subjected to a relentless barrage of negative propaganda for almost thirty years. Many corporations want to force open education markets, Microsoft and Pearson Education to name two of the largest, demand "free markets," "choice," and "free enterprise."
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Questioning Education Reformers' Motives: The Big Taboo
When Lyndsey Layton interviewed Bill Gates a few months ago, she violated one of the major taboos of the education reform discourse.
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
What's Good for Rich Kids Is Good for Poor Ones, Too
Meier: It is galling when rich people in the ed policy field tell me that class size doesn't matter-and pay a lot to send their kids to schools with half as many students per class as urban schools.
Budget & Finance
Opinion
Book Review: Mercedes Schneider's "A Chronicle of Echoes" Offers Tools for Defense Against Corporate Reform
Fans of Harry Potter will recall the most valuable class at Hogwarts: "Defense Against the Dark Arts." With her new book, "A Chronicle of Echoes," Mercedes Schneider has provided those of us working to defend public education with a work that could be called "Defense Against Corporate Reform."
School & District Management
Opinion
Massachusetts Teachers Association Takes On High Stakes Tests, School Takeovers
Activist rank-and-file movements are ramping up teachers unions' fight for justice, reason, and community solidarity by passing resolutions and winning offices across the country.