Search
Lois Weiner's blog
Bonus pay for teachers: An ideology, not a solution
| Lois Weiner | January 2, 2012 |
The New York Times front-page story extolling bonuses for "highly effective teachers" repeats claims about teacher quality and retention that are both highly inaccurate and widely-promoted, especially by those advancing "free market" policies in education. This piece marks a low in the NYT's journalistic standards in reporting on education.
How school reform gets hijacked by the Billionaire Boys Club: A cautionary tale for the Left
| Lois Weiner | December 20, 2011 |
A powerful new video, "The truth behind Stand for Children," tells a cautionary tale for the Left. Even if you already understand how charter schools have become a vehicle for destruction of public education, take five minutes to watch this concise analysis of how "Stand for Children," which began as a grassroots organization of parents fighting for increased school funding and reform, was taken over by the most powerful educational lobby in the world, the Billionaire Boys Club.
Credit cards substitute for student ID's: Next up in the US?
| Lois Weiner | November 25, 2011 |
Thanks to a recent blog at the website of a UK teacher union activist, we know may be coming down the road in the corporatization of US public higher education.
Pushing back on Wall Street's educational agenda
| Lois Weiner | October 6, 2011 |
The gutsy young people who are encamping on Wall Street, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, are probably doing more to save public education than anyone else.(Pace, Diane Ravitch). In pushing back on the economy, they are creating space for a meaningful discussion of what schools can and should do -- and what they can't. The mantra repeated daily in the media, by politicians from both parties, is that education can solve the nation's economic problems.
Talking about race and Haiti
| Lois Weiner | September 10, 2011 |
Though these two pieces about education, one about the terrible way the US is destroying any possibilities for a real system of public education in Haiti, the other reasons the author is NOT talking about race, do not make this connection, they point to the fact that education in the US has to be seen in the context of international policy, and in particular US imperialism, in which racism is pro
Labor Day and school reform
| Lois Weiner | September 5, 2011 |
This Labor Day, I’m hoping that teachers will press labor to fulfill its responsibilities to kids, by breaking with any politicians who don’t “put kids first” by creating jobs.
Why a former teacher union president goes over to the dark side
| Lois Weiner | September 1, 2011 |
The LA Times reports that AJ Duffy, who just this spring stepped down as President of the second largest teachers union in the US, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), is opening his own charter school, which will use all of the union-busting techniques UTLA has long opposed. LA's political establishment, most notably the former UTLA staffer who is now Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, is, no doubt, chortling in glee at this act of treachery.
Matt Damon, Diane Ravitch, and scapegoating teachers
| Lois Weiner | August 6, 2011 |
Several thousand teachers and their supporters rallied in Washington July 30, for the SOS (Save Our Schools) march, a grassroots effort organized by an Oakland CA science teacher.
Human rights activist Mazin Qumsiyeh has been arrested by Israeli soldiers
| Lois Weiner | May 15, 2011 |
Human rights activist, Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, was arrested by Israeli soldiers along with two
Harvard’s embrace of Christie – shameful but not surprising
| Lois Weiner | May 2, 2011 |
Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) at one time had space for progressive ideas, (that's where I earned my doctorate) but it was never a “liberal bastion." True HGSE had space for critique of US society, but the culture and institutional structure were dominated by the very wealthy annoyed that their children had to be exposed to critiques of US society in order to get the Harvard credential to which they consider themselves entitled.