Speaking at a conservative political conference recently, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called teachers and public education advocates “defenders of the status quo.” Indeed, it has become one of her favorite insults, and one she seems to use increasingly when she feels defensive or under attack–something that happens pretty frequently. The term “status quo” means “the existing state of affairs, […]

The news has been full of reports over the last few weeks on the need to “harden” our schools in response to the seemingly daily onslaught of school shootings in our nation. Many of our elected officials, such as President* Donald Trump and Secretary of Education* Betsy DeVos, have called for teachers and other school personnel to be given firearms […]

Betsy DeVos claimed last night, in her disastrous “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl, that “choice” (in the form of vouchers and charter schools) is the solution to improving public education–specifically, that when competition is inserted into the “education marketplace” it forces traditional public schools to improve. For a deeper dive into why this assertion from Sec. DeVos is just […]

A team of researchers from Stony Brook University have asked us to help them study the role that emotion plays in politics. I have completed the survey myself and I actually found it to be very interesting and kinda fun! The survey is completely anonymous and it only took me a few minutes to finish. Click HERE to begin the […]

Anyone who thinks age confers wisdom needs to meet Donald Trump The students who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and decided to to raise up their voices to make the strange argument that we should actually do something about the 35,000 gun deaths that happen in America every year have inspired some inspired tantrums from the […]

Betsy DeVos tweeted the other day about the lack of innovation in today’s public schools, saying: “Most students are starting a new school year that is all too familiar. Desks lined up in rows. Their teacher standing in front of the room, framed by a blackboard. They dive into a curriculum written for the ‘average’ student. They follow the same […]

“So much for running a government like a business. You can keep the $100 your tax cut will give me, if you take responsibility for your conduct and reimburse me what your potholes have cost me.” That’s the message Ann Arbor attorney John Minnock had for Gov. Rick Snyder this week, as reported by the Detroit Free Press. He wasn’t […]

Confessions of a liberal who was afraid to call out Trump/Russia connections in 2016 A few days before a New York Times poll of expert executive branch watchers collectively rated Donald Trump as the worst president in American history, The Intercept‘s James Risen made an observation that still chills me: “One year after Trump took office, it is still unclear […]

At the end of January and again at the beginning of February, I spent ten days in the hospital. I took a bit of a break from my normal hyper-consumption of political news and, when I dipped my toe back in, I found that the fire hose of cacophony that I had been drinking from before my illness had only […]

But there are plenty of good arguments for it There’s one time in most Americans lives when you can be sure that they are studying the history of this nation — eleventh grade. For this one year, most sixteen-and-seventeen-year-olds take a deep dip into the lore of this country that has gotten so many things right and wrong. If their […]

In the aftermath of yet another horrific school shooting, this one leaving 17 students and teachers dead in Parkland, FL, President Trump has ignored the cause of the problem, and has instead offered an almost incomprehensibly bad solution to the wrong problem–suggesting that teachers who agree to carry loaded weapons into schools, and received some sort of firearms training, would […]