StickWithANose

Considering how similar our two nations are it is always interesting to me to see how differently the Canadians view the world in comparison to the US. Watching our political discourse sink into madness and our democracy devolve further into a corporatist racket, I often wonder what our northern neighbors must think of all this. [...]

In yesterday’s post, I expressed my own take on the mid-term election as being more of the same without the federal dollars. In other words, I don’t see any big shifts on the horizon. It is safe to say that others do not necessarily share my view. In the name of furthering public discourse, I [...]

Considering the breathless coverage on its website, Education Week appears to be in full glee mode over the Republican tide that swept over the House of Representatives and governor mansions last night. While Ed Week goes out of its way to celebrate all of the “fresh faces” that will be coming to power in 2011, [...]

Sign your name to this Statement on Education posted by the Economic Policy Institute calling on legislatures and policy-makers to NOT adopt teacher evaluation systems based on value-added assessments.
Legislatures should not mandate and districts should not pursue a test-based approach to teacher evaluation that is unproven and likely to harm not only teachers but the [...]

Today, Schools Matter introduces us to one of the major players behind ‘Waiting for Superman’, Philip Anschutz. Turns out that Mr. Anschutz is a big player in the dark world of conservative think-tanks and edu-philanthropy.
One of the key players in the distribution of Waiting for ‘Superman’ is Walden Media, a film company owned by [...]

I’m plugging back into the Matrix after a whirlwind weekend trip, so I’ve got precious little to offer in the realm of education policy. However, I found this Invictus post over at the Big Picture to be telling. While the scooter store crowd is being whipped up over Team Obama’s “out of control spending”, an [...]

Let’s be clear… The reason there is such a massive push by Wall Street financiers and corporate titans to increase the number of charter schools is that these groups see an untapped market backstopped by tax dollars awaiting colonization. The rhetoric of academic achievement and preparing the next generation with the skills for a 21st [...]

There is an interesting trend afoot in popular political discourse that seems to be on full display today… A spreading Doctrine of Doom! No where is this more apparent than these two posts [1][2] by Paul Farrell at Marketwatch. The posts are built around interviews of and writings by Nicolas Taleb and Peter Morici and [...]

In a previous ‘linkage’ post, I offered a contrarian question on the effects of a GOP takeover of the House and [maybe] the Senate on education policy. It looks like I am not alone in this pursuit. This post over at EdWeek’s politics blog frames the discussion of a GOP takeover in a ‘he said [...]

Not content with leaving the nation in worse shape than did his mentor Herbert Hoover, the Bush family is celebrating the launch of the Bush Institute for Knowledge Pollution at SMU with the announcement of its first policy initiative: The Alliance to Reform Education Leadership. The goal of the initiative is to train educational leaders [...]