Today’s column by John Young is the perfect antidote to the wrong-headed notions propounded by nearly all the panelists over the last two days at NBC’s Education Nation. John was the opinion page editor of the Waco, Texas paper for many years, in George Bush’s backyard,  till he recently moved back to his home state of Colorado.  John showed Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9?11 on the side of a barn in Waco when the local theaters refused to show it; for … →

Oregon Save our Schools is the newest affiliate of Parents Across America; for more information, please contact Susan Barrett at barrettpdx@gmail.com TESTIMONY TO OREGON’S SENATE EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE & HOUSE HIGHER EDUCATION COMMITTEE On behalf of OREGON SAVE OUR SCHOOLS, an affiliate of Parents Across America Dear Committee Members: Members of our grassroots coalition have carefully followed the work of the Oregon Education Investment Team (OEIT). The team’s work has now concluded, and their recommendations will soon be … →

PAA co-founder Pamela Grundy has a son in fifth grade in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. So we finally won the Broad Prize. After two stints as a finalist, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools took home this year’s prize, which the Charlotte Observer termed “the nation’s top award for urban education.” CMS leaders celebrated. Our mayor called the prize “a huge shot in the arm.” I have mixed feelings. I don’t care for Eli Broad or the movement he is part of. His support for privatizing … →

An open message from a Kansas City teacher to the parents and  teachers of Michigan about John Covington’s reign of terror when he was superintendent of  her district’s schools. Covington drastically increased the class sizes of certain KC teachers following a model suggested by Bill Gates; this experiment ended, thankfully, when he left the district. Covington was recently appointed the head of Michigan’s new Education Achievement Authority to run that state’s struggling schools, with the power to cancel union contracts … →

This week, Parenting Magazine is sponsoring a blog-a-thon, in which parents from across the country, especially delegates to the 2010 and 2011 Mom Congresses, write open letters to their kids about what they’re going to do for education this upcoming school year. This letter was written by PAA co-founder Pamela Grundy, who was the 2011 North Carolina delegate to Mom Congress. Pamela is spending the fall in Shanghai, China, with husband Peter Wong (a visiting scholar at Tongji University) and … →

Obama’s speech last week to Congress has been described as a “wake up call”—with its aggressive and ambitious proposals to boost spending on education – including $30 billion to avoid further teacher layoffs, and $30 billion more to renovate school facilities.  These funds that are desperately needed as more than 2/3 of states and districts are suffering big cuts and increases in class size this fall-  with nearly a quarter million fewer school staff employed in June 2011 compared to … →

So-called education “reform” means teaching to the test, narrowing curriculum — and truncating lunch to 10 or 15 minutes. School food advocates object in a post on the popular The Lunch Tray blog. As I explained in a comment on the blog, educators aren’t the ones who think insanely short lunches are a good idea. As this commentary mentions, they are under intense (seriously intense, crushing) pressure from the non-educators who control our nation’s education policy. The truncated lunches are … →