Marc Epstein

In case you haven't noticed, hunting public school teachers is currently the sport of choice for a passel of politicians, education philanthropists, and members of the Fourth Estate, from Maine to Hawaii.

You have the sense that if wildlife preservationists don't step in soon, the teacher may go the...

About 15 years ago I clipped out a cartoon from a newspaper that depicted a public school administrator explaining the latest school reform craze to his colleagues. He was holding up two models of schoolhouses. One was a large building and the other a one-room schoolhouse.

The caption read,...

When Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, and Joel Klein talk about reforming public education in America, the conversation doesn't include the Scarsdale and Grosse Pointe public schools. While No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top established national guidelines for student and teacher performance, the underlying purpose of...

About six weeks ago I received a letter informing me that I was now a member of the Absent Teacher Reserve pool of the New York City Department of Education. That meant that because my school was being phased out and wouldn't be accepting new students my services were no...

By all accounts, political polarization has made America ungovernable. Speaking in Holland, Mich., President Obama declared, "There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics." He went on to say that we were experiencing the "worst kind of partisanship" and "the...

Anyone listening to the news should be familiar with the "crisis" facing public education today. A pantheon of the great and near great has dubbed it the "civil rights" issue of our day. They are a diverse group the come from all shades of the American political spectrum. It includes...

Okay, you've won! Tenure has been abolished. There are no limits on charters, and vouchers are available to all takers. Collective bargaining is a thing of the past. The dreaded fire-breathing dragon union now resembles a salamander. Governors, state legislatures, mayors and editorial boards, who've claimed that they can turn...

Michelle Rhee's latest idée fixe since departing the Washington D.C. Public Schools is the elimination of seniority hiring practices in public education to ensure that only the best teachers are kept on the job while the deadwood, ostensibly the more senior slackers in the schools, are shown the...

Just as he was walking out the door Joel Klein, "the most important person living in New York City," according to Rupert Murdoch, received another piece of bad news to add to his rapidly tarnishing image as the great education game changer in America.

It came at...

With Joel Klein out the door of the Tweed Courthouse, having deployed his golden parachute successfully over Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp headquarters, a little bomblet was dropped by the Department of Education.

For those of you with short memories, the news release resurrected the tragic drowning of Nicole Suriel that occurred...

When there is evidence of bad public policy, you can safely assume that it took two parties working collaboratively to create the swamp.

New York's Department of Education and the teachers' union have found themselves mired down in a dispute over the fates of more than a thousand teachers,...

Once upon a time, New York's public education system was unrivaled. Especially noteworthy were the high schools. They were mostly named after the city's neighborhoods and prominent people who were household names in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

That time is now gone. The beginning...

Jamaica High School is named for one of the largest neighborhoods in New York City. It has survived six wars, The Great Depression, and 9/11. If Mayor Bloomberg has his way, it won't survive his education "reform."

Last December, Joel Klein announced his intention to close 19 (the number has...