The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a conservative think tank focused on education policy issues. One of their frequent contributors is a person named Dale Chu. Full disclosure: I do not know Mr. Chu, we’ve never met, and I’ve only glanced at his blog posts in the past. I do know that I’ve never run across any of his scholarly […]

Let’s start with a confession: I have a crush on Diane Ravitch. (Note: my wife knows!) Sure, it’s a (mostly) academic crush, but a crush nonetheless. One of the real thrills of my professional life was attending a dinner in New York City a couple of years ago in honor of Dr. Ravitch’s contributions to public education. I had a […]

Speaking at a conservative political conference recently, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called teachers and public education advocates “defenders of the status quo.” Indeed, it has become one of her favorite insults, and one she seems to use increasingly when she feels defensive or under attack–something that happens pretty frequently. The term “status quo” means “the existing state of affairs, […]

Betsy DeVos tweeted the other day about the lack of innovation in today’s public schools, saying: “Most students are starting a new school year that is all too familiar. Desks lined up in rows. Their teacher standing in front of the room, framed by a blackboard. They dive into a curriculum written for the ‘average’ student. They follow the same […]

The bad news is that Betsy DeVos and her corporate pals are spending incredible amounts of money to convince parents that public schools are “failing”. The good news is that it’s not working. A new poll out this week shows that, despite efforts by corporatists like Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos and others to push for-profit charter schools under the […]

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the charter school industry, and it doesn’t look like things are looking up any time soon. In the wake of a devastating segment by John Oliver on the charter school business, and calls from civil rights groups like the NAACP and Black Lives Matter, the public is finally starting to question the […]

It’s no secret that many Republicans in the Michigan legislature want to destroy public education in our state and funnel tax dollars into the coffers of for-profit charter schools. For anyone paying attention, that’s a given. What is surprising, to me at least, is how brazen they have become. Detroit Public Schools is on the brink of bankruptcy. According to […]

The following guest post is by Mitchell Robinson and was first posted at his education-focused blog MitchellRobinson.net. He offered it up to me to share with the readers of Eclectablog and I immediately took him up on it having already read his beautiful prose. Robinson is associate professor and chair of music education at Michigan State University. He has held […]

Lapeer-area State Representative Todd Courser is a member of the State House Education Committee which oversees legislation pertaining to schools in our state. It’s an interesting assignment for him since he homeschools his own kids and regularly disparages public education. On his Facebook page today, as part of an anti-Planned Parenthood rant, Courser refers to child care providers as – […]

It could be worse, I suppose. We could be Florida. At the risk of giving Michigan Republicans any ideas – because their love of destroying public education in favor of for-profit charter schools that sap resources from our public schools is well-documented – I present you with Florida House Republicans, leading from the rear. A recent education reform effort, one […]

For the past four years, Michigan Republicans, taking their cues from the anti-teacher group Mackinac Center, have defunded education, gone after teacher pay and benefits, and done just about everything they could to put public education and public educators out of business. Their model is to make teaching so unattractive that the professionals abandon it as a career, leaving the […]