Top Five Public Education Controversies

While NCLB is not the only problem facing public education, it looms as the largest one for the Secretary of Education in the Obama administration. The law is overdue for reauthorization, and heated debate is expected over how to improve it. The battle lines are drawn primarily between proponents of anti-union, pro-standardized testing privatizers on the one hand, and advocates of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity on the other. Understanding the main controversies around which these camps will contend is critical for parents, community members, policy-makers, and anyone else with a stake in the nation's future.

Top 10 Actions You Can Take to Make a Difference in Public Education, #1

"Local school board elections on off-election days have very low turnout, often in the single digits. Given the obscurity of local school politics, it’s easier for the employees and their organized interests to dominate school politics. They’re just about the only ones following what is going on and voting in those elections." What’s good for the creationist goose can be good for the scientific gander too - if only the gander played the politics smarter.

Crowdsourcing for Edu-Change: Help Us Find Education Non-Profits to Support

So Here We Are. Let's get started. The pooled talent in the comments in four short days already inspires (and, yes, humbles and somewhat intimidates) me. I'm hoping it will come through on this crowdsourcing request. Help your pet education non-profits by adding them below?

Smart School Budget-Cutting with Free Open-Source Software

I can't tell you how many hairs I've pulled while watching administrators sink tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into software that they can get for freaking free. Case in point: Blackboard, the e-learning software, costs upwards of $50,000, and does things no better (and arguably worse) than the Free Open-Source Software ("FOSS") called Moodle. Choosing Moodle saves one teacher salary right there. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Read more.....

"The Better Angels of Our Nature": Improving Public Education #2

They clear rats from school ventilators. They wire schools to gift them with the world beyond the walls, and beyond the walled-in textbooks. If they have money, they give college years to those who otherwise would not have them. If they have no money, they give things more precious: their own things at hand, their expertise, their skills and muscle and labor - for one single day each year.

Ten Books on Education Worth Having

It goes without saying that the following list will suffer sins of omission, but it's the product of input from a large number of dedicated educators. Feel free to add your recommendations in the comment thread.

A Cheap Baker's Dozen Videos on Education Reform

Grab that popcorn and get ready to be schooled with the following edu-film festival

Quizzing the Experts: Welcome Notes from Your Suspicious Edu-Guide

How many of our education experts lack a pretty basic prerequisite for that title: experience in the field? How many of them have ever taught 200 kids a week, been an administrator or counselor or nurse or social worker for a school and its community - especially a poor one? Of those who raise their hands and say, "I did," a follow-up: for how long? And how long ago? The short version? How do any of these experts deeply know whereof they speak? And who pays their rent?

Special Education 2: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Congressional Intent

"Citizen Schools": Mentors Working with, not Against, Teachers?

From what I can see, Citizen Schools does not aim to compete with teacher unions, á la Teach for America, but instead to supplement and support them by providing a mentorship program after school, in which adults from the larger community teach students all sorts of new things, or help them with basic studies. If true, that's a model I can get behind.