'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The growing backlash against the nationwide K-12 school standards known as Common Core, bubbling to the surface in Indiana, Michigan and elsewhere, has become the hottest story in education.
Twenty-three schools in Philadelphia, Penn., will close due to struggling finances, city School Reform Commission members voted, on Thursday.
Taking his push for expanded early childhood education to a Republican-dominated state, President Obama on Thursday called on Congress to enact a sweeping program to extend preschool classes to every child in the United States.
One of American education's leading provocateurs still knows how to set off a firestorm.
The nation's leading teachers unions Thursday slammed the idea of arming more teachers, a proposal floated in the wake of last week's Sandy Hook school shooting by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and others and already in place in some Texas schools.
The debate continues over whether teachers and other school personnel should have access to guns in an emergency, but the nation's two biggest teachers unions warned Thursday that would be a disastrous idea that sends the wrong message to children.
Guest lineups for the Sunday TV news shows:
Friday's mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school has once again left public officials and educators bewildered and saddened, struggling for answers and forced to relive the horrific memories of violence from years past.
With Chicago's ugly strike behind them, teachers unions are regrouping with a public relations blitz, meant to both repair their image and rally members who are under more fire than ever.
The overwhelming power of teachers unions, Democrats' most loyal foot soldiers for decades, has sparked tensions within the party as some question whether the labor groups have made public school reform — a key policy goal of President Obama — more difficult.
Since the class-warfare message of the Occupy Wall Street protests started nearly two months ago, the two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have taken every chance possible to stand in solidarity with the group of mostly underemployed college students and left-leaning activists. With AFT President Randi Weingarten joining in protests and state affiliates taking part and organizing protests of their own, the teachers unions are quick to point out that "public education, teachers and unions have increasingly come under attack from the one percent," as Leo Casey, spokesman for the AFT's New York City local put it.
It was disturbing to watch U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan share a Florida stage recently with National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten.
Guests for the Sunday TV news shows:
Like a petri dish in the hands of a bunch of ninth-graders, D.C. school reform has morphed into a UFO -- an unidentifiable fiscal object.
Michelle A. Rhee wasn't on the ballot in Tuesday's primary, but the hard-charging D.C. schools chancellor - and the cause of overhauling one of the nation's most troubled public school systems - took a major hit when the votes were counted.
"Momentum is building to step on the accelerator of quality implementation, and put the brakes on the stakes," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said Thursday.
"Today's decision is a stinging rebuke of Gov. Jindal's agenda to strip Louisiana public schools of the resources they desperately need," said Randi Weingarten, president of the union. "This victory also makes clear that nobody is above the law."
Funding for La. Gov. Jindal's voucher program struck down by court →
