New York City has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, and its public schools, which serve 1.1 million students and employ nearly 135,000 people, officially closed on March 17. […]
There are so many voices right now grieving what we have lost with the school closure — our relationships with students and co-workers, the laughter and energy that echo down […]
On April 20, 2020, blogger LittleGrayThread made a Facebook post of a note her daughter had written. She reported that in a Zoom class meeting, one of her daughter’s 2nd-grade […]
As former K–12 teachers who are now teacher educators in California, we share grave concern regarding the expectation for preservice teachers to complete their Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) in order […]
Last fall, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, signed a sweeping array of progressive legislation into law. Among the many bills he enacted included legislation granting collective bargaining rights to the […]
Educators know firsthand what lack of paid family and medical leave means for their students and families — and for themselves. Now, the pandemic has dramatically elevated the need for […]
Horror movie sequels are notoriously bad. This one may be the worst. In 2009, federal intervention during the last financial crisis gave rise to the Obama administration’s signature education initiative: […]
International Movement for Public Education Privatization, standardized tests, funding cuts, attacks on teachers’ unions and contracts—the issues that are central to teacher activism in the United States are international. In […]
A high school English teacher reorients his classroom to be a space for student organizing for climate justice.
Back in the 1980s, I taught an elective class at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, called Literature and Social Change. It centered around the questions “What is a good […]
For the adjacent Chicago neighborhoods of Little Village and North Lawndale, two working-class, low-income communities (the former predominantly Latino/a and the latter African-American) on the southwest side of the city, […]
During the night and on into the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004, a determined band of Chicago Public School (CPS) parents and community activists camped at the front door […]
Years of writing about public relations and propaganda has probably made me a bit jaded, but I was amazed nevertheless when I visited America’s Army, an online video game website […]
First graders, three at a time, use classroom computers to take standardized tests. Their teacher explains the impact on the students and herself.
Scripted curriculum de-skills teachers and rewards students for passivity, not critical thinking. A teacher educator urges teachers to organize and fight back.
The failures of the corporate education “reform” movement leave it vulnerable to genuine grassroots school transformation.
The author of Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse reviews the history, impact, and future of zero tolerance policies.
A group of students from Chicago’s North Lawndale College Preparatory High were in the middle of a weeklong summer training to become Peace Warriors—peer nonviolence leaders. Suddenly, a sophomore named […]
To build an effective movement against the top-down strategies that are ripping public education apart, we need to take a closer look at who wants reform and why.
A new era requires new thinking
The problem is this: Testing is killing education. Not only is it narrowing the curriculum generally
In these bleak NCLB days of regimented
When it comes to Reading First, don’t believe the hype
Any discussion of charter schools must ask not only whether charters promote a worthwhile vision of public education
Far from addressing the systemic
