StickWithANose

Yesterday, I pointed readers toward yet more evidence that charter schools are not the education miracles that their advocates would have us believe and [most importantly] are not scalable as viable alternatives to traditional public schooling. On the very day that this data is released good ol’ Billy Gates was scheduled to speak at the [...]

While the movement toward growing the number of charter schools marches onward the evidence that charters are under-performing public looting machines continues to mount. Today, two new studies were released that reinforce that trend. The first one must be taken with a grain of salt as it was conducted by the same research organization that [...]

With hope for an emergency education jobs bill to plug the holes in school budgets across the nation fading, it is apparent that the movement toward fiscal austerity will have a significant impact on school budgets first. However, it is also clear that the impact of austerity will be uneven. To my knowledge, the US [...]

If there is one nugget of truth buried in this predictably ideological post over at the Quick and the Ed it is the conclusion that we have now entered a post-NCLB era. While the author seems to lament the glory days of a budding consensus among educational actors that of course never existed, he is [...]

Flawed KIPP Study: Schools Matter
Grading Financial Reform: The Big Picture
Yves Smith wants to reclaim the word ‘Reform’: Naked Capitalism
The Republican strategy appears to be a cynical attempt to totally wreck what remains of the economy with the understanding that the majority will receive the blame: NYT
Beware of Terrorist Babies! Washington Monthly
Our Terrible News Media: Harpers
Our [...]

Like financial innovation the idea of ISP innovation is ultimately destructive. Wired
There’s a complicated fight in D.C. right now over how the FCC classifies broadband services, so it can regain the power to impose some basic rules on the industry.
Free-market groups and the industry are banging the table, arguing against the consequences — saying that [...]

As someone whose interests are “represented” by the esteemed Bob Corker [R- Crazyland], I take great joy in watching honest brokers critique the ideological drivel that comes so naturally to the good senator. Corker got a  seat on the Banking Committee and the Securities, Investment and Insurance sub-committee not because of any particular expertise in [...]

It was as predictable as it is sad. Yesterday, I pointed readers toward the latest non-peer-reviewed study of KIPP schools that not surprisingly found it to be mildly successful in raising student test scores, and I also pointed readers toward the predictable problems with the “study.” Put simply, the study fails to clearly isolate whether [...]

The Washington Post is not alone in its un-critical reporting of yesterdays release of the newest KIPP report but it was so blatantly un-critical that it only reinforces the perception that owning Kaplan Inc. influences its education reporting. At least EdWeek offered some token criticism buried beneath the PR. Here’s what both missed… Education Policy [...]

In doing the research for my dissertation, I read all of the popular texts* addressing education policy and reform produced by six major think-tanks between 1998-2008. One of the many things that struck me was the degree to which the books produced identical narratives that employed the same talking points and political sloganeering and the [...]