The following essay was written by students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. At a time when the Overton Window view about the role of policing in our society is shifting ever more to the left, their voice is important and deserves to be heard. Organized by the group 482Forward which is working for a quality education for EVERY […]

In the aftermath of the recent Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh last week, I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of education reform related posts on social media. Unfortunately, just as with our more strictly political dialogue these days, it can be difficult to distinguish between facts and “Corporate-Reform-Agenda-Propaganda” (i.e., CRAP), or #alternativefacts. In the spirit of giving, I offer […]

I just got home from Pittsburgh where Chris Savage and I were covering the Public Education Forum for Eclectablog, and have been looking forward to sharing my thoughts on what transpired. Before we get to the candidates’ performances, I want to make sure to congratulate the organizers of this event, especially Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, and […]

Given that education consistently ranks among the top issues for voters in most public opinion polls, with the vast majority (82%) of parents of school-aged children reporting that they are either “somewhat” or “completely satisfied” with their child’s education, one could be forgiven for being flummoxed by the near-absence of questions about teachers, schools, or education in general at any […]

Way back in September–which feels like 10 years when measured in teacher years–I shared my disappointment with my sophomore foundations class that so many of them no longer understood references to the classic teen coming of age movies of the 1980s, like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Snippets from these films, like the ones below… […]

As a career teacher, watching the House impeachment hearings has been a sort of “out of body experience.” Like the rest of America, I’ve witnessed a parade of brilliant, highly-educated, dedicated foreign service diplomats deliver eloquent, insightful testimony under the most pressure-packed circumstances they’ve ever experienced, and do so with grace, elegance, and professionalism. At the same time, reports have […]

Betsy Devos has done it again. On August 29th, the Department of Education sent a letter to the Consortium for Middle East Studies departments at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, claiming that the program “disproportionately portrays ‘the positive aspects of Islam’”. They threatened that if the schools do not make amendments to the program by September 22nd, […]

Michael Bennet, US Senator from Colorado and presidential candidate, had what the pundits this morning are calling “a moment” at last night’s Democratic Debate on CNN. Let’s hope that moment ends immediately. Ironically enough, Bennet’s big moment came as he waxed poetic about “America’s public schools”, a topic that has received a depressingly minuscule amount of attention. Because while Bennet […]

In a presidential administration that seems to function as a turnstile with people coming and going from their positions on a nearly continuous basis, one person seems to be a constant: Betsy DeVos. It’s no surprise, of course. She and her husband and other families members give enormous amounts of money to Republicans. The Center for Responsive Politics found the […]

A couple of weeks ago, I published an essay titled Betsy DeVos and the Koch brothers must be so proud: Michigan teacher salaries down 16% from 2009. The title is pretty self-explanatory and the bottom line is that there is a very predictable (and predicted) teacher shortage in our state now because of how we have demonized, diminished, and demeaned […]

It’s taken years of concerted effort but, at long last, Betsy DeVos and the Koch brothers can finally claim victory: Teachers in Michigan are now paid less today in both real and corrected-for-inflations dollars. In 2009, the average teacher salary in our state was $63,025. In 2017, the most recent year for which we have data, the average was only […]