Cardona Matters, But the Most Important Decisions Will Happen at the Local Level

President Joe Biden has certainly kept busy during his first days in the Oval Office. He has issued a call for national unity, doubled down…

After a Decade of Opposing Voucher Programs, I’m Wondering If I Was Wrong

I smiled at the two little girls seated across the table in the school board conference room but only six-year-old Kayla, wriggling in her pink…

Newark Students Deserve Education Champions Who Keep Their Promises

It’s no secret that education in the city of Newark has had a tumultuous history. It’s a history with a complex narrative—going from a distinguished…

If We Really Want to Change Our Schools, We Need to Get Real About What’s Happening in Them

Thirteen years after Hurricane Katrina and the reunification of all schools under the governing of Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), we are still having conversations…

10 Issues We Could Solve in Education If We Really Wanted To

With another school year upon us, here are 10 issues facing public education in no particular order. They range from the structural to the cultural…

13 Years After Hurricane Katrina, My School Is Returning to Local Control

On July 1, the Recovery School District (RSD) will return control of our schools to the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSD). The shift back is…

The Struggle to Find the Perfect Standardized Test Is Real

So it looks like the standardized test known as Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is now a dead man walking…

Thought Charter and District Schools Couldn’t Work Together? Newark Has Found a Way

It’s often noted that the original vision for charter schools, championed by legendary teachers’ union leader Al Shanker and others, was that they’d be “laboratories…

Coffee Break: Candice McQueen on Equity, Lattes and Staying on Top

If I had to pick one word that critics and supporters of Tennessee’s Education Commissioner Candice McQueen might agree on to describe her, it would…

Critics of the Obama administration's Department of Education repeatedly targeted what they saw as federal "overreach" into local districts. Now the Trump education budget guts funding for programs that are popular and effective at the local level, while only adding significant new funding to one area—trying to influence local decisions about school choice. This proposed budget is a greater assault on local control. It needs to be called…