On Thursday night, Diane Ravitch with her usual incisiveness pointed out the importance of poverty and the unfairness of teacher-bashing on Jon Stewart’s the Daily Show. According to Valerie Strauss’ Answer Sheet, Ravitch’s book shot up from #758 on Amazon’s list to #35 by the next afternoon. Jon Stewart showed a short clip of the segment on Fox News debate, to ridicule the commentators’ attack on the “greed” of teachers, while defending the huge bonuses and salaries of Wall Street … →

Throughout the United States, the nation’s public school system is being savaged by budget cuts that will make a mockery of federal legislation designed to reduce the achievement gap between children in low income and high income districts. In Detroit Michigan, the school district has been told by the state to close half of its schools to close a 347 million dollar deficit, leading to high school classes that could contain as many as 60 students. Providence Rhode Island just … →

February 15, 2011 Andrea discusses Parents Across America and education reform on Colorado’s progressive talk radio with Mario Solis-Marich on 760AM Listen Here: Andrea Mérida — 760 AM

Spokane owes a great deal of thanks to Parents Across America and all the people who have worked so hard to save our public schools. It has been difficult to see the attacks on public education in this country, but it has also been inspiring to watch committed parent activists fight the good battle against corporate school reformers. We can’t wait to see this “Sleeping Giant” take off and we hope the Spokane chapter can be a part of that! … →

On Saturday,  Arne Duncan warned governors about ‘dumb’ education cuts and then suggested even dumber cuts, like increasing class size: “Duncan also said that states should think selectively about increasing class sizes. The father of two grade-school-age children said he’d rather his kids be in a bigger class with a better teacher than a smaller class with a lousy one. He suggested teachers could get paid extra for getting a bigger class…” Now can anyone explain how that would help … →