Author: Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig

• Help! I need your advice. Should I apply to Teach For America?

  7–10 minutes

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  February 17, 2014

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  Teach For America, Wisdom

  Teach For America (TFA) is soooo magnum sexy right now. For example, one of the “charities” that was sponsored during the past weekend’s NBA All-Star festivities was TFA. TFA was placed on a pedestal with the Wounded Warrior Project, UNICEF and the American Heart Association. A colleague of mine texted during the game, “Since when…

  

• Have you heard?: Jeff Santos & Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig on Revolution Radio Network

  1–2 minutes

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  February 13, 2014

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  Accountability, Charter Schools, High-Stakes Testing, Vouchers

  Take a listen to our live radio conversation from Tuesday 2/11/14 about vouchers, charters, testing and accountability. For part 1 of the conversation click here and for part 2 click here. The conversation goes for about 15 minutes. Thanks to the NEA for tweeting about the conversation. A few tweets: https://twitter.com/NEAMedia/statuses/433354171266240512 https://twitter.com/NEAMedia/statuses/433353859012886528 https://twitter.com/NEAMedia/statuses/433353709393686528 https://twitter.com/NEAMedia/statuses/433350741432877056 https://twitter.com/NEAMedia/statuses/433349888852504576 Please…

  

• I’m Pro-Choice: Families Should Choose (not Schools, Districts, or the State)

  3–5 minutes

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  February 10, 2014

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  Charter Schools, Standards, Vouchers

  Choice is a popular buzz word these days in educational policy. It seems more and more that the word is used when choices in education are actually being reduced— when in fact someone else is actually doing the choosing besides families. In the case of school choice, it is exactly that, schools choose. How so…

  

• NV, TX, OH, UT, NM, AZ, PA, OR, FL, and AR should be Ashamed of Charter School Achievement!

  3–4 minutes

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  February 7, 2014

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  Charter Schools

  The Texas Insider recently reported the following about the Stanford CREDO charter school study: The results reveal that the charter school sector is getting better on average, and that charter schools are benefiting low-income, disadvantaged & special-education students,’’ said Director Margaret Raymond of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) language learners more than their peers in…

  

• Were kids actually smarter decades ago?: Student achievement data trends (NAEP, etc.)

  12–18 minutes

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  February 4, 2014

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  High-Stakes Testing

  To understand the success and failures of public education in United States and Texas (as measured by achievement tests), I ask the following research questions in this post: How do the nation’s public schools perform on the NAEP over the past several decades? Were kids actually smarter 30 years ago in the U.S? Also, how…