New Orleans Charter School Problems Exposed at NAACP Hearing

[Re-published with permission from author] By Bill Quigley New Orleans is the nation’s largest and most complete experiment in charter schools. After Hurricane Katrina, the State of Louisiana took control of public schools in New Orleans and launched a nearly complete transformation of a public school system into a system of charter schools. Though there…

School Privatization Explained

  The Network for Public Education has recently published the School Privatization Explained toolkit to educate the public on the harms of privatization and to encourage informed decision-making when approached with so-called solutions marketed in the name of “school choice.” The document includes two-page summary responses to each of the following questions: Are charter schools truly public schools? Do charter…

Spending Blind: The Failure of Policy Planning in California Charter School Funding

[Re-published with permission from In the Public Interest] “California has more charter schools than any other state in the nation, in large part because of generous public funding and subsidies to lease, build, or buy school buildings. But much of this public investment, hundreds of millions of dollars, has been misspent on schools that do not…

60 Minutes Explores Tech Designed To Be Addictive

What are the long term impacts of cell phone use on children?  And are youth more susceptible to tendencies for tech addiction than adults?  While we may not have definitive answers to these questions, researchers have revealed important findings connecting screen time to children’s developmental outcomes, and journalists are now also beginning to pay attention to how technology…