Education in America: Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Economist | Oct. 2, 2010 (Opinion)

For America’s children the education system is often literally a lottery. That is the main message of a new documentary about America’s schools, “Waiting for ‘Superman’.” Made by the team that gave us “An Inconvenient Truth”, and supported with the sort of marketing budget that other documentary makers can only dream of, it is intended to create a surge in public support for education reform at least as great as the clamour to do something ... Full Story »

Posted by Joe Pallas - via David Wardell (t), Randy Benson (t), Wil Kristin (t), Fabrice Florin (t), Peter Avalos (t), Ray Nichols (t), Sirajul Islam (t), Kaizar Campwala (t), Willie Bido (t)

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by Joe Pallas - Oct. 2, 2010

This piece spouts the familiar "teachers’ unions are the problem" line while completely ignoring key facts: states where teachers are not unionized don't perform better than unionized states, the vast majority of charter schools don't perform better than regular public schools, and we don't even know how to identify "good" and "bad" teachers. If "reform" means investing scarce resources in alternatives that don't do the job any better, then maybe being an "obstacle to reform" isn't such a bad thing.

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