Paul Thomas

Don't Buy School Choice Week

Author P.L. Thomas
Choice, we must acknowledge, in the United States is a sort of consumer choice: We must allow people the choice of either a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry (but choosing not to drive shall not be on the table).
Tags: 
School choice
#SCW

NO EXCUSES FOR ADVOCACY MASQUERADING AS RESEARCH

“I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.”

Commander Buck Murdock (William Shatner), Airplane 2: The Sequel

A rallying mantra of politicians, education reform advocates, and many charter schools is “no excuses”—a mask for an ideology steeped in classism and racism and targeting mostly black, brown, and poor children.

RANK (ADJECTIVE) – HAVING A STRONG, UNPLEASANT SMELL

For many years, the College Board would release average SAT scores with the states ranked by those averages. While the media would rush to make claims about those rankings as well as how average SAT scores changed from one year to the next, educational researchers and scholars often fought a losing battle trying to explain the flaws with such rankings and with making many of the claims about relative educational quality the media, politicians, and the public embraced.

USDOE: WHEN IN A HOLE, KEEP DIGGING

The U.S. Department of Education ended 2014 with another (and predictable) reach into education reform, proposing new policy for teacher education.

AUTHORITARIAN SCHOOLS, AUTHORITARIAN STATE IN THE SERVICE OF PRIVILEGE

The fruits of the Reagan Era are proving to be mostly poison apples.

Both begun under Reagan, mass incarceration and high-stakes education reform have escalated the rise of the authoritarian school and the authoritarian state in the service of privilege.

SCHOOLS AS PRISONS, A WEEKEND READER

While many have highlighted the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon, we are less likely to confront the schools-as-prisons reality many high-poverty and minority children suffer; and thus, a reader:

When High School Students Are Treated Like Prisoners

PARENTS AND LANGUAGE: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

The Good

Middle-class and affluent parents are good because they pass on to their children good cultural capital (such as good literacy).

The Bad

Impoverished parents and working-poor parents are bad because they pass on to their children bad cultural capital (such as bad literacy).

The Ugly

Many, if not most people, in the U.S. embrace the above class- (and race-) based views of parenting and language (vocabulary, grammar, reading, and writing).

Illinois School Bans Discussions of Michael Brown's Death

Prohibiting students from talking about events in Ferguson offers them exactly the opposite of what they need.

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