Fifty costly years of failure to “fix” education

By Larry Sand
05/07/2019
Research shows that technocratic reforms have made no difference in alleviating the achievement gap. A new study by Eric Hanushek et al. for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) shows that all the top-down fixes – No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, etc. – piled on by the education industrial complex have...

TAGS: Eric Hanushek, Greg Forster, Larry Sand, No Child Left Behind, Programme for International Student Assessment, Rick Hess, school choice, teachers union

Testing Matters

By Larry Sand
01/05/2016
Led by the teachers unions, the push against standardized testing punishes kids. With bipartisan support in Congress and President Obama’s blessing, the son of No Child Left behind, dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), has become the law of the land. While many on the right favor the law because it returns some power...

TAGS: American Federation of Teachers, CAHSEE, Larry Sand, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, National Education Association, No Child Left Behind, Randi Weingarten, teachers union

Exposing Teachers Union Front Groups Against Minority Kids

By RiShawn Biddle
07/08/2015
Hope remains eternal — at least among those who want Congress to pass a reauthorized version of the No Child Left Behind Act being considered by the Senate this week. Even as the likelihood of passage remains as unlikely as it was back in March, when House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline’s...

TAGS: American Federation of Teachers, Dropout Nation, education reform, National Education Association, No Child Left Behind

Doctored Education

By Larry Sand
05/26/2015
Using testing as a backdrop, NEA president promotes 1950s industrial-style education. The American Enterprise Institute’s education policy maven Rick Hess has been traveling around the country promoting his new book The Cage-Busting Teacher. So last week he left his Education Week blog in the hands of National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen García. Interesting choice,...

TAGS: American Enterprise Institute, Friedman Foundation, Greg Forster, Larry Sand, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, National Education Association, No Child Left Behind, Rick Hess, seniority, Teach For America, teachers union, tenure, Terry Moe

Pseudo Studies and Push Polls

By Larry Sand
04/21/2015
Teachers unions turn to “facts” as they desperately cling to their monopolistic, anti-privatization narrative. Last Thursday the “non-partisan” Center for Tax and Budget Accountability rolled out a report that slammed vouchers, claiming that there is “no statistical evidence proving that students who use vouchers perform better than their public school counterparts.” The “study,” as reported...

TAGS: American Federation of Teachers, Bob Peterson, Cato Institute, Center for Popular Democracy, Education Next, Friedman Foundation, Greg Forster, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Jason Bedrick, Larry Sand, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, No Child Left Behind, Randi Weingarten, school choice, teachers union, vouchers

Common Core: A Trojan Horse?

By R. Claire Friend
04/07/2014
The deceptively innocuous-sounding name belies the crippling effects a centralized K-12 education curriculum will have on the United States once it is allowed to take effect. Ze’ev Wurman, software architect, electrical engineer and longtime math advisory expert, feels Common Core is a federally-enforced “mediocre national benchmark” that “marks the cessation of educational standards improvement” and...

TAGS: No Child Left Behind, public education

Responding to Romney’s Critics

By Larry Sand
06/06/2012
Regarding education reform, Romney needs to pound on the facts, leaving his detractors to pound on the table. Recently Mitt Romney laid out his education vision in a speech at the Latino Coalition’s annual economic summit in Washington D.C. The Republican candidate for president didn’t mince words. He said that we are in the midst...

TAGS: Eric Hanushek, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, Greg Forster, Jay Mathews, Lindsey Burke, No Child Left Behind, Randi Weingarten, small class size, teachers union