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May 04, 2013

Rebirth: New Orleans -- Documentary Poses a Moral Dilemma

this highlights for me, the moral dimension that Merrow ignores, when, at the end of the film, he proclaims this experiment a success. How can we accept that a third of the schools in New Orleans have been consigned to the status of dumping grounds for the other two thirds? How can we celebrate the creation of a system that allows schools to wall themselves off from students who are the most damaged by poverty and violence - and relegates those students to schools that cannot possibly succeed in this competitive scheme?  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 08:03 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 11, 2013

Tony Monfiletto: A Charter School in No-Man's Land

In his invitation, Anthony pointed out my schools are outside the field of vision of technocrats and policy makers who have bet the farm on high stakes standardized tests and school reformers (charters mostly) who have drunk the Kool-Aid and see the tests as a way to disrupt the overall system. I will add that there are very few people from the education establishment have invited my schools into the fold. They find them threatening to their monopoly status and categorize us with all the CMOs with which they compete. However, I don't think I'm in a "no man's land" or even on a charter school island by myself. My schools are imbedded in the community and they sit at the intersection of hopeful families and employers who are desperate to hire their children regardless of whether they're "accredited" by public or charter schools.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:31 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

March 02, 2013

Georgia Religious Schools Skirt Constitution to Access Taxpayer Funds

To be clear, what is happening here is that individual taxpayers can direct the funds that are being diverted from the state tax coffers towards their own children's tuition, or that of their friends. Vouchers have proven to be highly unpopular with voters, as they divert scarce funds from public schools and unconstitutionally allow them to pay for religious instruction. This violates the state constitution's prohibition against tax moneys being spent "directly, or indirectly" on religious organizations. This law is an end run around the Constitutions of the State of Georgia, and the United States, and if Earl Ehrhart has his way, this week the state will toss another $30 million into the pot.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 3:14 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

February 04, 2013

Opposition to Common Core Grows Across the Political Spectrum

The drive towards Common Core State Standards and standardized assessments to enforce them has been described as an unstoppable train, and teachers are warned that we had better get on board with the process, or risk being run over. But opposition to this juggernaut is emerging from some surprising places, which creates the possibility of some unusual alliances.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:38 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

February 02, 2013

Churn for Charters is No Solution

The "charter movement" has recently recognized that they are vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy if they demand that traditional public schools be closed for poor performance, but fail to enforce the same standards on charters. This report proposes that we spread the churn that currently plagues public schools into the charter sector. This may be more "fair," but is not, from my perspective, likely to make things much better for students.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:45 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

January 31, 2013

Interview with Joshua Starr: Excellence is Not a Zero Sum Game

I have become increasingly concerned that public education in the United States is seen as a private commodity rather than a public good. Too often, value is defined as something that I have and you don't, if we both have it, it can't possibly be valuable, regardless of what the "product" actually is. The current achievement disparity between different groups of students is not only a moral imperative, it's an economic one. If we don't better serve children that are poor, African-American, differently-abled, Latino, immigrant or English Language Learners, our economy will greatly suffer because the tax base will decline substantially. I believe that communities have to define what they want from their public schools, organize systems around their vision, and then make sure that all schools within the community have the capacity to achieve it. If we continue to think of excellence as a zero-sum game we will continue to allow too many schools to fail rather than build their capacities to improve.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:33 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

January 27, 2013

School Choice Week: Are We Leaving Children Behind by Design?

But the marketplace and the drive for profits are proving to be very poor at delivering equitable outcomes for many of our students. Why is this? Perhaps the very design of these school choice systems allows - even promotes - the systematic abandonment of students with lower levels of motivation and parental support.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:12 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

January 22, 2013

19 Year Old Zack Kopplin Challenges Public Funding of Creationist Schools

You may have heard recently about a 19 year old activist who has been shaking things up in Louisiana. Zack Kopplin cares about science, and when creationists attempted to sway the science textbook process in 2010, he got involved. More recently he has been fighting the diversion of public funds to schools that teach creationism. I asked him to share a bit about his work.  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:19 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

January 05, 2013

Revealing Debate over the Education Reform Dichotomy

is it possible to fight for a system that leaves no children behind, which promotes equity and equal opportunity to ALL? Can we commit to spending the MOST resources on the neediest children to address safety and learning issues? Can we commit to addressing the underlying poverty which creates so many of the behavior, learning, and safety issues in schools? Can we commit to ensuring that no matter where you live, you will have a well-kept, EQUITABLY resourced (more resources for needier schools), properly staffed school, complete with access to libraries, up-to-date technology, social workers, counselors, and foreign language, arts, music, etc?  Read Full Post >

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:22 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

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