The first thing I felt when I arrived at Liberty Park in New York City this past Saturday was the energy. It brought me back to the late ‘60s when I was a graduate student in Wisconsin.
A 4th of July Declaration of Dependence
Monday, July 11th, 2011It’s no small irony that on the 4th of July weekend our nation’s largest union surrendered a chunk of its independence. At their annual meeting in Chicago, the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly voted to support the use of student standardized test results in the evaluation of teachers. That vote alters the union’s previous opposition to such a policy and ties the NEA even closer to the Obama administration’s educational agenda.
Who represents the working class in Massachusetts?
Friday, April 29th, 2011The vote to take away public employee health care bargaining rights took place thirty minutes before midnight, on April 26th, while most of the state slept, oblivious to the event. The scene would have brought a big smile to the face of Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker. But this wasn’t Madison. This was Boston, and the protagonists weren’t members of the GOP, but the Democratic House leadership in allegedly progressive Massachusetts.
The Politics of “Waiting for Superman”
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010I fidgeted throughout the film Waiting for Superman, through the bells and whistles, the graphs, the close-ups of the five cute kids and their caring single moms, grandmas and parents, having read enough reviews, and having listened to enough critiques to know that I wasn’t going to like the film. And I didn’t, but what disturbed me the most wasn’t Davis Guggenheim, the film maker, playing fast and loose with data and attacking teachers and their unions every chance he had. As is turned out, for me, the most painful moments of the film were the charter school admissions scenes at the end.
Beware of Cabinet Officers Bearing “Gifts”
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010“We already have the privatization of the military…; we’ve seen the privatization of the prison system. Well, the next step is the privatization of public schools.” That prediction by Jonathan Kozol four years ago has come closer to reality with the enactment of President Obama’s Race to the Top educational goals.
