On September 27, 2009, the Washington Post, ran an editorial, "Charter Success." It carried a sub-headline, "Poor Children Learn. Teachers Unions Are Not Pleased." It began "Opponents of charter schools are going to have to come up with a new excuse: They can't claim any longer that these non-traditional...

Two and a half years ago, The U. S. Chamber of Commerce and The Center for American Progress released a report on the condition of education in the U. S. It was the typical scare tactic, what we might call the educational variation on "Death Panels."

Fortunately, no...

None of this will likely strike you as particularly new, but it might be good to have a bunch of myths lined up and debunked all in one place.

1. The schools were to blame for letting the Russians get into space first. Granddaddy of all slanders and...

Each year the educational periodical, Phi Delta Kappan, conducts with the Gallup folks a poll of Americans' attitudes towards their public schools. Each year, one result is guaranteed: Respondents say their local schools are OK, but the nation's schools are average to awful.

This is not a parallel with...

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants a longer school day, a longer school week, and a longer school year and national subject standards, which will inevitably lead to one national test. Duncan wants to institute merit pay, which is a euphemism for paying teachers to produce higher test scores. Such...

I have written a piece on this topic, but it is too long for the blog. I received this shorter essay recently and decided to present it instead. I don't think that Canada has found the "ideal intervention" for Harlem kids (he'd be on his way to Oslo to get...

The President of the United States and his Secretary of Education are violating one of the most fundamental principles concerning test use: Tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were developed. If they are to be used for some other purpose, then careful attention must be...

Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has been on a "listening tour" where he's done most of the talking. He advocates, repeatedly, that mayors should take control of urban schools. Obviously he cannot take an honest look at his own accomplishments under this governance system or -- he'd have to...

Arne Duncan recently talked about charter schools on Democracy Now. The segment could have been called "Arne in Wonderland." Some of what he said:

Duncan: "We also need to work together to help people better understand charters. Many people equate charters with privatization, and part of the problem is...

Engineers have made great advances in robotics in recent years. Everyday-robots can vacuum rugs and mop floors. More advanced models can act as secretary of education. Call it the Arne model. Boot it up and it talks and talks and talks. But it appears to lack two functions, the ability...

On February 1, 2008, President George W. Bush said "the fundamentals of the economy are strong; we're just going through a rough patch right now" (UPI). Even while the economy was crumbling all around him, presidential candidate John McCain insisted on September 15, 2008, "the fundamentals of our economy are...

How can the Obama administration get it right in education when its data are all wrong and its assumptions about its faulty data are flawed?

President Obama told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, "8th graders have fallen to 9th place." That statistic comes from the 2008 round of the Trends...

About 30 years ago, Boston College professor, George Madaus, called for an "FDA for testing." The point was--and, sadly, is--that school testing was a huge industry totally unregulated. Since Madaus' proposal, the testing industry has exploded in size. And there is still no regulation, no oversight. "Tests are regulated less...

OK, there were some good things in the talk to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I especially liked an expansion of early childhood education having worked in the field and recently surveyed a meta-analysis of how well it works. It works, but overall it produces nowhere near the $10...

They might have great jump shots, but on education they're both tossing air balls. While both have visited charter schools, neither has entered a regular public school. Their oratory has been uninspiring and sometimes downright scary.

At the New York City charter school that Duncan visited, he said,...

I have not the expertise to address the merits of President Obama's speech to Congress on the issues of the economy. I do claim some expertise on education. He blew it.

He accepted the same garbage that the propagandists, fear mongers such as Lou Gerstner, Bill Gates, Roy Romer, Bob...

The schools were blamed for letting the Russians orbit the first man-made satellite. Declassified memos, though, indicate that the U. S. could have had an orbiting satellite over a year before Sputnik circled the earth:

During an October 8, 1957 meeting with governors and generals, President Dwight Eisenhower...

The February 7 Wall Street Journal quoted secretary of education, Arne Duncan, saying, "Educationally, we used to lead the world, and we have sort of lost our way in the last couple of decades. We just have to educate ourselves to a better economy."

Supposedly, Mr. Duncan came to Washington...

When Senator Clinton was still a candidate for president, both she and Senator Obama sought counsel from an educator friend of mine. He told them both not to say anything about education. No matter what you say, he told me that he told them, you're going to make a lot...

Principle 23 of the "principles of data interpretation" that organize "Reading Educational Research: How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered," reads "If the situation really is as alleged ask, 'So what?'" The question does not call for some smart-ass response, it calls for an evaluation of the consequences of...