Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Rules for traditionalists
I’m reading Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, not because Alinsky is our co-pilot at Balloon Juice and not because Newt Gingrinch doesn’t want anyone to read the book, but because the title has the word “rules” in it. There are rules for that? Great. Why didn’t anyone tell me? I love the book. There’s a [...]
February 12, 2012
· 
Kay · 
52 Comments
Posted in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Education, Election 2012, The Decadent Left In Its Enclaves On The Coasts
The Root of the Problem
Interesting piece in the Times about a failing PA school district: he Chester Upland School District is more than $20 million in debt, its bank account is almost empty and it cannot afford to pay teachers past the end of this month. To make matters worse, the local charter school, with which the district must [...]
February 5, 2012
· John Cole · 50 Comments
Posted in: Education
I’m still not clear on why conservatives don’t want people voting early, yet they do want people voting absentee
Sunshine in the sunshine state: Election experts and Democratic voting advocates told U.S. senators Friday that a Republican-backed overhaul of Florida election laws will suppress Democratic turnout in the nation’s biggest battleground state next fall. Democratic Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida and Dick Durbin of Illinois held a field hearing at the Hillsborough County Courthouse [...]
January 30, 2012
· Kay · 83 Comments
Posted in: An Unexamined Scandal, Domestic Affairs, Education, Election 2012, Enhanced Protest Techniques
Belt and suspenders
More like this, please: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Attorney General Eric Holder plans to deliver a speech on voting rights on Monday at a Martin Luther King holiday rally in South Carolina, a state where just weeks ago his Justice Department blocked a new voter identification law. Holder plans to attend a rally sponsored by the [...]
January 15, 2012
· Kay · 81 Comments
Posted in: Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Don't Mourn, Organize, Education, Election 2012
If You Have To Legislatively Force Your Theory To Be Taught As Science, You’ve Lost
PZ Myers flags this legislation under consideration in the Missouri House. It seems HB1227 would not only redefine “intelligent design creationism” as actual science, it would then require that textbooks and classes in Missouri schools be forced to teach it as acceptable science along with “scientific theory” evolution. It’s bad enough that the bill attempts [...]
January 14, 2012
· Zandar · 113 Comments
Posted in: All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Clap Louder!, Education, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own, Republican Stupidity, We Are All Mayans Now
I believe he’s gonna work me into the ground
Gnoot has a post up about his proposal to prepare kids from poor families for the low paying, menial jobs they will often be forced to take after leaving school by giving them low paying, menial jobs while they are at school. Wouldn’t it be great if New York City schools served their students as [...]
December 28, 2011
· Sarah Proud and Tall · 153 Comments
Posted in: Education, Fuck The Poor, Fucked-up-edness, Sociopaths
Working As Intended, Citizen Pierce!
Charlie Pierce, Esquire, is alarmed by a new “pediatric health” study: Of all the numbers in this new study, the following remains an astonishing statistic: By the time they’re 23, 41 percent of American kids have been busted for something more serious than a traffic stop… To me, it’s an indication of that something is [...]
December 21, 2011
· Anne Laurie · 17 Comments
Posted in: An Unexamined Scandal, Decline and Fall, Domestic Affairs, Education, Good News For Conservatives, Security Theatre
On the Local Front
The WV BOE changed the bullying rules: For the first time in state history, gay and lesbian students will be expressly protected from school bullying after the West Virginia Board of Education unanimously adopted a new anti-bullying policy Wednesday. Under the new policy, bullying based on 13 categories including race, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation [...]
December 15, 2011
· John Cole · 33 Comments
Posted in: Education, Gay Rights are Human Rights
“If I Were a Poor Black Kid…”
Dude naw. Look, if you’re a middle-aged white guy writing for Forbes Magazine, and you find yourself writing an article entitled “If I Were a Poor Black Kid,” just stop. Seriously. Stop: President Obama gave an excellent speech last week in Kansas about inequality in America. “This is the defining issue of our time.” He [...]
December 13, 2011
· ABL 2.0 · 179 Comments
Posted in: Education, KMBA, Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person
Test drive
I know the Obama 2012 campaign has started because I found myself writing the phrase “white working class voters” here yesterday. Oh, for God’s sake, not that again. In any event. However. There will be all of that chatter, and then there will be a campaign that is actually going on in states and cities. [...]
November 29, 2011
· Kay · 20 Comments
Posted in: Domestic Affairs, Education, Election 2012, Enhanced Protest Techniques
I thought we were winning but we may be losing
I started reading more about for-profit K-12 schools last spring because I was talking with people about teachers and unions during the Issue Two campaign. In the course of those conversations, I found that people here were very surprised to learn that nearly half of “public” charter schools in Ohio are run by for-profit entities. [...]
November 22, 2011
· Kay · 66 Comments
Posted in: Domestic Affairs, Don't Mourn, Organize, Education, Election 2010, Election 2011, Election 2012, Free Markets Solve Everything
Mitt Romney is always welcome here
We in Ohio were lectured for months by Governor Kasich and media that Kasich’s union busting law was not about unions. It was about health insurance. It was about merit pay. It was about budgets. It was about balancing the state budget. Very few in Ohio believed that, because it was obviously not true. The [...]
November 15, 2011
· Kay · 27 Comments
Posted in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Education, Election 2011, Election 2012, Enhanced Protest Techniques, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Glibertarianism, Good News For Conservatives
No Creativity Left Behind
I haven’t looked into this in great detail, so if any of you know more about the issue, please expand, but I find this kind of think to be tragic: I was devastated by Michael Winerip’s article on how the No Child Left Behind Act has affected the creative teaching at a New Hampshire middle [...]
November 1, 2011
· John Cole · 83 Comments
Posted in: Education
Nibbling Around the Edges
Obama does a little something for low-income student loan holders: At a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council, said the president would use his executive authority to expand the existing income-based repayment program with a “Pay as You Earn” option that would allow graduates to pay 10 percent of [...]
October 26, 2011
· mistermix · 45 Comments
Posted in: Education
Thanks but no thanks
I saw Dougj’s post on Steve Jobs and teachers’ unions and I had to weigh in. I’ve been reading a lot on unions lately. The attack on teachers’ unions specifically concerns me, because the crazed, reckless race to deregulate public schools in Ohio has led to some completely crazy unregulated for-profit grifting in Ohio and [...]
October 24, 2011
· Kay · 97 Comments
Posted in: Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Domestic Affairs, Education
