Was DeVos Really the ‘Worst Secretary of Education Ever’?

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned last night, citing Wednesday’s putsch at the Capitol, Trump’s incitement of violence, and her concern that “impressionable children are watching…

Here’s What I Will Fight for in 2021

2020 was the pits.  More than 300,000 Americans died from COVID. A dearth of presidential leadership that led to the politicization of wearing masks—the single…

Here’s How You Prepare Teachers to Teach in a Pandemic

We continue to live in a Brave New World—of Zoom rooms and Google Meets, virtual check-ins, Seesaw, Flipgrid and Nearpod. Technologies and tools that were…

Civil Rights Groups Insist on Testing: ‘You Cannot Improve What You Do Not Measure.’

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, the clock is soon-to-be-Ex-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has told states that…

Q&A: Chris Cerf on Fighting COVID Learning Loss With Great Teaching

Last March schools across the country closed and typical live instruction morphed into erratic meetings on Zoom. Many of us assumed this was a short-term…

I Thought Vouchers Were Wrong, But Now I Realize They Helped My Son

Recently I wrote that a residency hearing with two children, Kayla and Tasha, represented to me our deeply-embedded structural inequities in education that decades of initiatives,…

Khaliah Fitchett on Going From Handcuffs to Running for Congress

One afternoon in March 2010, Khaliah Fitchette, a 16-year-old student at Newark’s University High School, was riding home on a NJ Transit bus with her…

Think Your Vote Doesn’t Matter? Then Vote Local.

National media is entirely preoccupied by Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s ongoing barroom brawl. But there are 95,000 other seats across America up for grabs…

Karega Rausch Says Charter Schools Get Better Outcomes for Kids When They Listen to Communities

With all the ruckus around charter schools, it’s easy to forget they can’t be painted with a broad brush. Each state has its own charter…

You Can Hate Trump and Support School Choice

Every time Donald Trump says, “school choice is the civil rights issue of our time,” I cringe. It’s hard to think of a more debauched…