Years ago, I placed the blame for uncertified, unqualified edutourists who spent a year or two working in mostly urban schools before heading off to law school or cushy gigs at ed policy think tanks on the despicable persons heading up Teach for America–the Michelle Rhees and Wendy Kopps of the world–and not the fresh-faced, hyper ambitious noobs who applied […]

I think we need to start being very intentional with the language we use when referring to organizations like Teach for America (TfA) and the persons who decide to join them–and having made some of the mistakes I’m about to point out myself, I’m taking the liberty of making the following suggestions: • There are no TfA “teachers”–teachers decide to […]

In this installment of The Charter School Follies we meet our hero, Eva Moskowitz, the CEO and founder of one of America’s most well-known “No Excuses” charter management corporations, Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City. Ms. Moskowitz, who never studied education, never taught in a public school, and “thought half of her teachers in high school were incompetent”, shares in […]

A recent editorial in USA Today (“We can expect more from teachers when we pay them like pros: Bloomberg and Weingarten”) presents an object lesson in how the politics surrounding the recent wave of teacher walkouts is creating some very troubling alliances in the nexus between business and education. Under the guise of presenting a “unified front”, former NYC mayor Mike […]

Today’s interview is with a teacher who wishes to remain anonymous because they still work within the EAA. Like some of their colleagues in the EAA, veterans who are certified teachers with experience educating kids, this teacher sees the model as flawed. More importantly, they describe the system as run by administrators who do not know what they are doing. […]

Wait. Maybe there IS something to see here after all. NOTE: My reporting on the Education Achievement Authority involves multiple posts. You can read all of my coverage of the EAA by clicking HERE. As I reported yesterday, Education Achievement Authority Chancellor John Covington attempted to suggest that everything is just fine in his “school district for misfit schools”. He […]