So Much Policy Talk
How much can schools—under the best of circumstances—affect young people's lives and drives? In many ways I've spent 50 years exploring the answer to that. Read Full Post >
Recently in Poverty Category
March 29, 2012
February 14, 2012
Desperate Times in Cleveland and Ohio
The leaders of one of the most economically depressed and racially segregated cities in the nation have decided that the answer to its problems is to fire teachers, close public schools, expand the number of charters, and possibly to expand the voucher program as well. Read Full Post >
February 07, 2012
Getting Real About Turnarounds
The turnaround approach assumes that it is bad principals and bad teachers who stand in the way of school improvement. Read Full Post >
January 26, 2012
It's the Economy ...
I'm not regretting having spent 50 years trying to reform American public education, and I think it's more imperative today than ever. But the future doesn't depend on it the way it does on our economic crisis, our political system crisis, and our planetary self-destruction. Read Full Post >
January 05, 2012
What Disparities in Wealth Say About Society
But what kind of society allows such disparities based on one and only one special "talent"—the talent some have for handling money? The ability to take financial advantage of his/her good luck? Read Full Post >
December 13, 2011
Scrooge and School Reform
Ladd suggests that what is needed are positive policy interventions, such as early-childhood and pre-school programs; school-based health clinics and social services; after school programs and summer programs; and paying more attention to inputs such as school quality and school processes. Read Full Post >
December 08, 2011
Are All Choices a Choice?
If charters had stuck to their original selling point—the need for innovation on a small, less-regulated scale before we mandated it on a large scale—there'd be a few grumbles and otherwise just curiosity. Read Full Post >
December 06, 2011
Do You Believe in Miracles?
There are no silver bullets in education. There are no magic feathers that enable elephants like Dumbo to fly. It's hard work to improve schools. It takes dedication, resources, and time. And the work is never done, the magic number of 100 percent is always out of reach. Read Full Post >
December 01, 2011
Getting From Here to There
In a world in which the money some folks earn in a day is more than what others hope to earn in a year, a decade, a lifetime, it's hard to calculate likelihoods. Even the word "earn" is problematic. Read Full Post >
October 18, 2011
If You Believe in Miracles, Don't Read This
But as long as public officials insist on making test scores the measure of teacher quality and school success, then their claims should be closely scrutinized using the metrics that they themselves have made the coin of the realm. Many of the schools that politicians hail as successes have records no different from other schools that the politicians are closing. Read Full Post >
The opinions expressed in Bridging Differences are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.
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