On Saturday, July 30, thousands of educators and parents rallied at the grassroots Save Our Schools March on Washington, D.C. Education heavyweights like Diane Ravitch, Linda Darling-Hammond, Jonathan Kozol, Deborah Meier, and Pedro Noguera all took the microphone, but it was Matt Damon whose closing speech brought down...

Alan and Susan Raymond make documentaries that matter, and their latest, Journey Into Dyslexia, lives up to their reputation. It premieres on HBO2 Wednesday, May 11 at 8 p.m. -- set your DVRs.

This 75-minute film, shot and edited in the Raymonds' trademark no-frills style, bluntly takes on...

High-stakes testing is on the rise.

Since it works so well, why not export it to other parts of American life... like marriage?

WATCH:

Dan Brown's blog Get in the Fracas is hosted by the Teacher Leaders...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg set off shockwaves when he picked media executive Cathie Black to be the next chancellor of New York City's public schools. Aside from a brief conversation with Cindy Adams, Ms. Black has declined all interviews--- except one imaginary conversation with my fictitious "Concerned Educators Blog."...

I attended two early screenings this summer of Davis Guggenheim's big-ticket education documentary, Waiting for Superman, and it touches the education reform zeitgeist. When the film unspools across America over the next weeks, I predict a massive chorus of voices echoing his entreaties for more great teachers, less union influence,...

After two years of teaching in a southeast DC charter school, I finally visited Anacostia Senior High School, my public school neighbor and a place often referred to as an exemplar of a dysfunctional public school. Anacostia got some positive attention though, when two weeks ago Michelle Obama...

60 Minutes recently profiled my school, The SEED Public Charter School of Washington, D.C. The crew had been visiting the school for just over a year, and the final product is the 13-minute clip below. (Catch me around the 4:40 mark.)

William Ayers's new book To Teach: The Journey, In Comics is part autobiography, part education reform tract, and entirely enjoyable to read. I don't know another edu-book that blends these three elements so well. To Teach updates Ayers's 1993 book of the same title-- except this time around...

Mitt Romney, one of the top contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, gleefully dropped some teacher-hating red meat to the CPAC crowd in Washington last week. The audience pounced like bears on honey. As someone who cares about the long-term sustainability of our democracy, I am perplexed.

The Weirdest Political Ad of All Time: Thank You, Carly Fiorina

Beware! California GOP Senate candidate (and former 2008 McCain campaign surrogate and Hewlett-Packard CEO) Carly Fiorina has just unleashed a 3-minute attack ad that will melt the brains of all voters in the Golden State and beyond.

Who...

Expect to see real American classrooms on the silver screen this fall. This could be a beautiful thing.

In the first major deal at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Paramount Vantage has picked up Waiting for Superman, an education documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth)....

High-stakes testing is a bullet train barreling through education reform; you're either on the train, on the sidelines, or waving your hands in frantic protest, only to be run over.

Last week's education speech by emboldened New York City Mayor-for-Life Bloomberg (who just dropped nine-figures of his own cash...

The editorial page in today's New York Times takes a bizarre pot shot at teachers. In discussing a teacher evaluation system under development in New Haven, Connecticut, the Times overtly dismisses on-the-ground educators:

School reformers were excited to hear that New Haven planned to take student performance into account...

High-stakes testing has become so prevalent in American public schools that the terms "student achievement" and "test scores" are used interchangeably by pretty much everybody.

Much muck has been raked about how the high-pressure exams don't assess students' abilities and learning fairly or accurately. The extreme emphasis on test...

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced last week that a reduction in force (RIF) of public school teachers had become unavoidable given sudden budget cuts made by the City Council. Veteran teachers are about to be kicked out the door, "exited" by September 30. School...

The power plays over D.C. public schools just went into gonzo territory. This week, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced a reduction in force (RIF) was imminent -- despite having just hired 900 new teachers in a system of just 3,800 teachers. Layoffs begin September 30; fear and...

"Excuse me, Mr. Brown... I just want you to know... I've read all your books, and Angels and Demons is my favorite!" The wide-eyed woman shifted her weight anxiously. We were in the Upper East Side's Corner Bookstore, minutes before my nerve-addled, first-ever book reading. "I was wondering, how did...

Today is the first day of class for New York City public schools. Below is an excerpt from The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle about my rocky first day as a fourth grade teacher in the Bronx.

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At 7:58, I...

Deep into the presidential campaign last year, I was stunned to learn that a significant number of my high school students had never heard Barack Obama speak. They'd heard of him, but had no clue about anything he stood for. This was shocking to me; I listened to the guy...

I and millions of others on the Obama listserv just got an email from David Plouffe announcing:

President Obama is holding a live strategy meeting on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time for all Organizing for America supporters.

The event page allows anyone to submit questions to the...