by David Safier On Imagine School's website, you can read a list of the corporation's Six Measures of Excellence. Most of them are the usual stuff — values, achievement, character development — but one, as the old Sesame Street song says, is not like the others. The final sign of excellence is the development of … Read more
by David Safier Education scandal rags Education Week is abuzz with vaguely interested in the shocking not-terribly-exciting news that Washington D.C. Superintendent Michelle Rhee is engaged to former basketball star, former charter school operator and current Sacramento mayor, Kevin Johnson. They've been carrying on a bi-coastal romance for some time. Johnson says it will be … Read more
by David Safier Stop the presses, and stop bad mouthing public schools. Our graduates are so well trained, productivity just jumped almost 10%! What's that? You say there's no direct connection between schooling and productivity? Then why was everyone trashing me and my fellow teachers in the 80s when productivity was down? If it was … Read more
by David SafierI've been out of town, so I haven't written about the second and third installments of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Journal Gazette's series on Imagine Schools: Education Inc. This is about Part II, It's 'Our school, not theirs,' which is a doozy. The glue in this installment is the email Imagine CEO Dennis … Read more
by David Safier Man, Tom Horne has spent a lot of Ed Supe time and Dept of Ed money trying to knock down Tucson's Ethnic Studies programs. Who knows how much time he's wasted and how many miles he's logged traveling to Tucson just to hold press conferences trashing the program. And now he's wasted … Read more