In the last year, the national education debate has been occupied by economists, billionaires, hedge-fund managers, corporate columnists and party-politicians –indeed, it seems like the further a person is from the classroom, the more weight his opinion carries. Call it the Gates Paradox – the power of your voice in the “education reform” debate is proportional to the distance from the classroom, multiplied ...

No Child Left Behind just celebrated its tenth anniversary: while educators, children and parents have generally loathed the landmark signature legislation, and while studies have shown that it has failed to improve learning despite its immense cost,  NCLB’s free-market policies – high-stakes standardized testing, and school closures for “losers” – are the undisputed status quo of school reform.    Presiden ...

  Are you a hedge fund manager or venture capitalist feeling guilty about being in the 1%? Do you need a philanthropic investment to help polish the image of your brand, sullied by the Occupy protests? Or are you a seeking a way to make huge profits off of the government you love to hate? If so, on January 12th in New York City, you’ll have an exciting opportunity to ring in the New Year by delivering ...

“Military Children Stay One Step Ahead of Public School Students,” according to a recent report in the New York Times, based on a 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress study, which found that students growing up on military bases outperformed their civilian counterparts in fourth through eight grades.  And no, it’s not because children on military bases are more disciplined, because they have to ...

Rocketship is blasting off in Silicon Valley, with great fanfare – and no, it’s not a new tech start up, propelled by the genius of another 22-year old wunderkind who has invented the latest, most innovative way to virally spread videos of silly cats playing pianos.   Yet, looking at the applauding coverage of Rocketship, you’d be hard-pressed to not think you’re watching a business profile of a rising star ...

Taxpayers are down on their luck Vegas gamblers, who have made a “bad bet” on the community college students across the country who have dropped out as freshmen, according to the opening lines of a San Francisco Chronicle report.  Now that the public grows weary of reading the ills of Bad Schools, community colleges are the new public institution bogeyman, wasting billions in taxpayer money, standing in the ...

"It's time, the anger is boiling over and we're sick of being taken advantage of and taken for granted! Occupy Wall Street! It is time to stop the greed and bring about real social change," so states what sounds like a passionate tweet from a 19-year-old New York University undergrad skipping her sociology classes to camp out on Wall Street. Instead, this mini-manifesto is the product description for a pres ...

If you’re a casual observer of the education debate, today might seem monumental: George W. Bush’s controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which created a system of extensive high-stakes testing for students and schools nearly a decade ago, is finally being “revamped” by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, according to a report in the Washington Post, and across the national pr ...

In 1958, The Blob – a gelatinous B-movie creature from outer space  – crash landed in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania consuming whatever poor screaming extra happened to be directed into its path. “Devoid of personality and intelligence,” The Blob expanded relentlessly in Cold War America, moving from the screen to the our “popular consciousness,” becoming something of a “pop icon,” Steve Biodrowski wrote in a r ...

Bill O’Reilly and other conservative talkers often portray my beloved San Francisco as a liberal Sodom and Gomorrah, an icon of corrupt mores summarized snidely as San Francisco Values. At first blush, a recent story in SF Weekly appears to fit O'Reilly's liberal stereotype: “Schoolhouse Rocked: S.F.'s Most Controversial Charter School Throws Off For-Profit Masters”.  The cover page feature article sounds a ...