TomDispatch: Union-Busting or Republican-Busting in Wisconsin?
One hundred years ago, 146 people, mostly young immigrant women, died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in downtown New York City, a building lacking sprinkler systems, fire walls, or adequate fire escapes. Onlookers watched horrified, writes historian Steve Fraser, as many of the trapped workers jumped to their deaths from upper-story windows. Those below “talked... Read More
Has Teach for America Solved the Teacher Conundrum?
Cross-posted with MotherJones.com The Atlantic has a story in its January/February issue promisingly titled “What Makes a Great Teacher?” What indeed? As someone who follows education reform closely and occasionally writes about it, I clicked through to the article, eager to see what the writer, Amanda Ripley, had to say on one of the most puzzling, beguiling, confounding... Read More
FAST TIMES AT RECRUITMENT HIGH: How Obama’s education secretary opened public high schools up to the military
Another new piece of mine at Mother Jones on Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his past record in Chicago’s school for opening them up to the military. *** Fast Times at Recruitment High When Arne Duncan stepped down as the head of the Chicago Public Schools to become the secretary of education in January, the school district he left behind had little to brag about. For... Read More
Det News op-ed: ‘Mayoral control isn’t the answer for Detroit schools’
A recent op-ed of mine appeared in one of the big Michigan papers, the Detroit News, not too long ago. It’s about why mayoral control—a bad idea in the first place, I believe—is an even worse idea in a city like Detroit. Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to the Motor City in May to peddle his mayoral-control message to Detroit Public School leaders that, quite frankly,... Read More
Is administrative bloat driving up college costs?
Several weeks ago, I wrote a story titled “Shut Out: How the Cost of Higher Education is Dividing Our Country” for Tomdispatch.com that the cost of higher education has increased more than five times faster than the median income in the past 30 years. In that story, I asked, “How did college, once seen as an increasingly democratic path to advancement, become so expensive?” I... Read More
Why you should be worried about Arne Duncan
I’ve got a new piece published at Truthout.org titled “The Corporatization of Public Education” about a recent indication made by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to put more mayors in charge of underperforming urban school districts. Something must be done in many of our urban school districts—to decrease drop-out rates, to boost student achievement, to provide... Read More
On education reform, Obama administration (sadly) looks an awful lot like the Bush admininstration
Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. It’s beginning to look like the only difference between the Obama administration’s vision for public education standards — most notably, No Child Left Behind — and the Bush administration’s positions is the name. In today’s New York Times, Sam Dillon reports that President Obama and his shaky point man on... Read More
American dream deferred: The educational crisis sweeping across the U.S.
Photo courtesy of flickr user acidcookie. I’ve got a new piece published at TomDispatch.com today about the crisis of college affordability sweeping throughout higher education, from community colleges to elite, four-year public and private colleges and universities. It’s a crisis that’s been long coming. The Pell Grant, created in 1972, was the last... Read More
Community college leader named under secretary of education
As public and private four-year universities price so many young people out higher education, community colleges are educating more young Americans than ever, with their enrollments growing, class sizes skyrocketing—and all with less funding than any other type of college or university. With that in mind, it’s encouraging to see that Education Secretary Arne Duncan (for... Read More
The Anatomy of an Endowment
This week, myself and a colleague at The Michigan Daily, staff reporter Kyle Swanson, have been publishing an extensive series on the University of Michigan’s complex, influential, multi-billion-dollar endowment. As far as I know, this series is the only multi-part series on how a major university endowment actually functions, what it’s comprised of, who manages it... Read More
