Education for Sale?
For-Profit Firms Target Public Schools
Education Alternatives Inc. is an innocuous name, and one could easily confuse it with countless other education reform efforts that come and go with barely a ripple of concern. But […]
Getting Off The Track
Classroom Examples for an Anti-tracking Pedagogy
In school, I hated social studies. My U.S. history class was, in the words of critical educator Ira Shor, a memory Olympics, with students competing to see how many dates, […]
How ’Bout Them Brewers, Hey!
On Tuesday night May 11, Milwaukee Brewers general manager Sal Bando strongly hinted in a radio interview that the baseball team might not be able to build a new stadium […]
Year in Review: Why We Must Both Defend and Criticize Public Education
Why We Must Both Defend and Criticize Public Education
Everyone acknowledges that public schools in the United States are in crisis. But unity ends there. Businesses call for the privatization of public education and the need to instill business […]
How the Christian Right Organizes
Are Fundamentalists Taking Over Your School?
From Maine to Oregon, South Carolina to North Dakota, education activists report the presence and influence of the so-called Christian Right. Sometimes these forces identify themselves clearly, sometimes they don’t, […]
Corporations Woo Young Students
Schools Awash in Business Propaganda
A student flicks off the lights in a Mark Twain High School classroom in San Francisco. The teacher pops a video into the VCR, and as a newshour jingle fills […]
Family Gumbo: Urban Students and Poets of Color
Urban Students and Contemporary Poets of Color
I shall write of the old men I knew And the young men I loved And of the gold toothed women Mighty of arm Who dragged us all To church. […]
Are Public Schools to Blame?
Unemployment, Recession, and Other Economic Ills
In the last decade, a popular myth has been created: the declining economy in the United States is the result primarily of poorly educated workers who can’t compete in today’s […]
Blueprints for School Success
How Size and Location of Schools Affect Achievement
It is sometimes assumed that the quality of educational facilities has no impact on academic achievement. Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee, for example, was quoted this spring during debate over […]
