The Chinese are serious about vocational (aka career and technical education). The United States is not. Vocational education in the United States has a long history of being used as holding bin for African American students by purposefully providing inferior education relative to traditional academic and college preparatory education. Here is a quick background on the rise of vocational education
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A longstanding issue in school finance research and litigation concerns whether money spent on public education is equitable. Traditionally, researchers examined if money spent on public education was equitable across districts within the same state. Given that public education is partially funded by local property taxes, districts with higher property taxes generally spent more to educate students than districts with
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Dear Cloaking Inequity Readers! Thank you! Thank you for supporting young scholars who will continue to fight for public education! Thanks to you and your gifts and donations of miles we will be able to produce research that: Helps US policymakers understand why vouchers were problematic after several decades of universal implementation. Will further the argument for reinvestment in public
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I leave for China tomorrow. I will be accompanying the Teachers of the Year from several states as an NEA Foundation Global Fellow. We will visit schools in the Middle Kingdom over the next eight days. This will be my third trip to China. My first trip was a six month stay in 1996. I studied Chinese high school students’
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The attempted charter takeover of the nation’s 14th-largest district is underway. Wealthy backers of the hostile takeover attempt have gathered enough signatures to force the anti-democratic maneuver onto the November ballot. I first discussed the attempted takeover of Dallas in the post Beware: A Hostile Takeover of ALL Dallas Public Schools is Underway. I also visited Dallas on the invitation of several community groups to discuss
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Originally posted on Diane Ravitch's blog:
Here is Arne Duncan’s statement on the Vergara decision that tenure and seniority are unconstitutional. Not a word about the real causes of unequal opportunity: poverty and segregation.. Who would have believed that a Democratic administration would stand by silently as collective bargaining rights are rolled back (Wisconsin) and would hail a court…
Today I am blogging about two parent horror stories from BASIS. Let me just warn you, after hearing parents talk about what allegedly happened to their children at BASIS, you will likely be in a surly mood learning about this corporate (quasi-for profit) charter chain. The BASIS corporate charter chain is now a very unfavorite of mine. Who/What is BASIS? Wikipedia describes
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