PASS HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM NOW!

If we are to live in a society where poor children and children of color can have a real shot, a real chance to achieve their dreams, then our government must provide a quality public education and quality healthcare to all of its people. The health insurance reform bill that the House will hopefully pass this weekend could be better. Specifically, it could have a public option, which would force for-profit insurance companies to compete with a more efficient and probably more effective public agency. But this is not only a good bill, it is an historic bill.

THE OTHER LOS ANGELES EMERGENCY: OUR EDUCATION DEFICIT

The following is a guest post from Fernando Espuelas. You can find the original post here, and can read more from him every day at www.espuelas.com.

Among the Founding Fathers' brilliant ideas was universal public education.

IN SUPPORT OF LAST WEEK’S PROTESTS

For many years, the stance held by most progressive voters on public education has been both simple and narrow: schools are underfunded and need more money. Growing up in a progressive (and very political) household where issues of policy and politics were discussed nightly at the dinner table, insufficient levels of school funding were about the extent of the analysis we ever reached on California’s public education.

BLATANT DISRESPECT OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH

The LA Times reported this morning on the absurd abuse of Black History Month of three teachers at Wadsworth Elementary, who when selecting Black heroes for their elementary school students to celebrate, chose O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman, and RuPaul:

A STARTING POINT

I haven’t had a chance to get through the much discussed upcoming NYT Magazine feature, Building a Better Teacher, but in the meantime I wanted to highlight a relatively simple takeaway from Justin Cohen on the piece:

The quality of teaching matters … a lot. And it’s differential.

“PARENT TRIGGER: MORE THAN JUST A GIMMICK”

I just found a podcast by a group called "Dropout Nation" from two weeks ago responding to the criticism from Jay Mathews and others to the Parent Trigger. You can listen to the whole thing here (probably about 6-8 minutes long, and definitely worth a listen).

“LAUSD BOARD’S SO-CALLED REFORM”

The LA Times joined the Daily News today in blasting the LAUSD school board for last week's Public School Choice vote:

The Los Angeles Unified school board looked transformation in the eye -- and blinked. By overriding several recommendations of its top experts and cutting three of the region's most respected charter organizations out of the picture, the board sadly demonstrated once again that it is devoted more to the politics of running schools than to the education of students. (...)

PRO-KID, PRO-UNION REFORM IN PHILADELPHIA

I came across an AP story from last week detailing some very encouraging collaboration between local Districts and bargaining units on school turnaround efforts in Philadelphia and elsewhere. The whole thing is worth a read, but I’ll try to give you the key excerpts:

Even in a school system known for its academic troubles, the numbers at Vaux High School are jaw-dropping: More than 90 percent of 11th-graders tested last year could not read or do math at grade level.

MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT TUESDAY

I wanted to share a few more articles about Tuesday’s vote and the Public School Choice Resolution process:

Matt Yglesias had a smart post yesterday titled “LA Teachers Union gets its shot,” with essentially the same take-away that Ben had yesterday.

Along those lines, EGP writes about the high expectations for the new Esteban Torres pilot schools in East LA.

La Opinion also weighed in largely agreeing with our take:

“LAUSD CHICKENS OUT IN REFORM EFFORT”

The Daily News today wrote a blistering editorial, hammering the LAUSD school board for their votes on Tuesday. A few excerpts:

EVERY great movement has its ups and downs, experiences good days and bad, and takes steps forward and back. And on Tuesday, the reform effort at the Los Angeles Unified School District took a big backward step.

...

Pages