To add a little humor to the education and public policy debate, Cloaking Inequity is starting a new series entitled Los Chistes (Also check out The Teat, which examines where various school “reformers” derive their funding). Cloaking Inequity has discussed Sandy Kress and Pearson in earlier posts. I teach a course called Critical Policy Analysis on Tuesdays. One of the students
Read more
Texas politicians continue to be interested in finding elegant ways to reduce funding for public schools. Now they are aiming at the gems of our educational system— our colleges and universities. No Child Left Behind is coming to a Texas college and university near you. Yes, the Legislature that birthed NCLB wants to apply their outdated way of thinking about
Read more
Breaking News: One of the Harlem Shake YouTube sensation videos featured Michelle Rhee, Jonathan Alter, Jeb Bush and Rick Perry. Who knew!? Also for your viewing pleasure: UT-Austin Harlem Shake
Read more
Jason Stanford wrote a BRILLIANT piece about Texas supposedly #4 in the nation graduation rates. This is journalist gold. In early January I conducted an analysis of the graduation data via a FOIA request. Clearly the Lone Star State is lying to the feds ala Atlanta and El Paso. Will the feds really allow Texas to tell such a bold
Read more
There have been several articles describing the “Don’t Mess with Texas Revolt” against its own approach to high-stakes testing and accountability that was legislated in No Child Left Behind. Many Texans, regardless of their political stripes, are fed up with the current approach to high-stakes testing and accountability birthed here in the Lone Star State. There is this recent article in
Read more
Happy New Year 2013! I have often posted on school vouchers over the past few months. Why? There are factions in Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere that still argue they are efficacious educational policy and are pressing them into law. They are not. See CI’s thread on vouchers here. IUPRA will soon release a brief entitled Do Vouchers Create More Inequality?: Lessons from
Read moreWritten in collaboration with Dr. Jaime Portales Voucher supporters in the United States and elsewhere claim (including Sen. Dan Patrick) that vouchers will improve the educational opportunities of disadvantaged students (Sugarman, 1999), and contribute to the social integration of middle- and upper-class students. Voucher supporters argue that, since school choice is already available to upper-class families through residential mobility or
Read more