StickWithANose

This post from the Journal of Educational Controversy points us toward a truly innovative school model. [h/t Public Policy Blogger]
[Westside Village Magnet School] is a wonderful example of a democratic progressive school and provides a model of what our schools can achieve. The first thing you notice when you first arrive at the school is [...]

Sometimes it is almost impossible to remain optimistic about the current trajectory of the nation. One of the greatest characteristics of the American experiment with democracy is the nation’s uncanny ability to renew itself, but I fear that if we continue down this path much further we will become a Banana Republic. Today brings us [...]

I was reading this wonderful rant by Matt Taibbi on the hollow utopianism that is Randian Objectivism when I was struck by the fact that even Taibbi is mis-representing the SEC charges against Goldman Sachs.
The case in question involves a hedge fund financier, John Paulson, who went to Goldman with the idea of a synthetic [...]

While the oligarchs consistently tell us that our schools are falling behind the education systems of global competitors like China, it is fascinating to see how few lessons we actually take away from international approaches to education. The oligarchs are forever telling us that we need to emulate the Japanese and the Chinese in order [...]

In the contemporary parlance of education reform, the concept of ‘innovation’ has become the latest fetish to be bandied about, and (as is so often the case) it is a concept that is little more than an empty signifier. Just days after Team Obama’s corporate tool made sobering comments about the looming financial crisis facing [...]

In popular discourse, it has become commonsensical that America’s expanding waistline and overall poor health is the result of the highly processed foods we eat and our propensity to sit on our backsides in front of the tee vee. However, there is a growing line of research that ties health outcomes to economic polarization. Could [...]

Modern human societies can never stand still; they are forever in a state of transformation. Thus, the questions specifically addressed by politics are: What kind of transformations are taking place? Do these transformations fulfill or undermine our normative values and ideals? And what transformations are both possible and desirable at this historical moment?
Social progress and [...]

One of the key elements of the current push toward the privatization of public schooling is the de-professionalization of teaching into what is, in effect, an industrial model of education. Backed by the Chamber of Commerce and venture philanthropists, Team Obama has thrown its hat in with the ‘blame teachers for everything’ crowd and openly [...]

American teachers and policy-experts concerned about the continuing destruction of public schooling under Team Obama need only look across the pond to learn what needs to be done. From the Guardian:
Headteachers in England today voted overwhelmingly to boycott national tests for 10- and 11-year-olds on the first day of a new government – a move [...]