The comment thread on Gary Stager’s HuffPo article on the Duncan appointment wouldn’t allow this long response, so I’m posting it here. Gary, I’m still informing myself (and as others have noted, your links are now more of my homework), so I’m going to withhold judgment somewhat. I will say that all the reading I’ve [...]

Who is Arne Duncan and how will his choice as Secretary of Education affect education in the US (and, for better or worse in this hegemonic age, much of the rest of the world)? I’ve spent so many hours since the announcement reading reactions online that both my eyes and my brain cells are fried. [...]

NCLB as a potential world epidemic To riff off an old saw, “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” This is beyond obvious when we think of the Iraq invasion, the refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and countless other examples. Less obvious, though, are the effects of American education policy on the world. [...]

Annotations of Obama’s 2004 Interview on His Religious Beliefs Obama is a year older than me, and that’s only the beginning of the list of ways I relate to him. Here are more things we have in common: He didn’t grow up rich and privileged. When he got out of college, he drove a car [...]

How’s this for proof that student blogging can lead places? Pretty cool proof that if a kid can blog about more than his favorite video game or her cat, Fluffy, the sky’s the limit. Here’s some link-love for Stas’ blog. Maybe I’ll subscribe.

He wins in a Democrat landslide. Hopes are high for a progressive agenda unseen since the New Deal, and he delivers, in the first days of his presidency, an avalanche of legislation meant to fulfill those hopes. But he also inherits a military conflict that his advisers are counseling him to escalate – with a [...]

Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves. In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two [...]

Preface: What I Learned from the Comments on My “Portrait of the Teacher as a Young Racist” Post I was surprised that my story of anti-black racism in the American South drew strong reactions in the comment thread from readers in New Zealand, Australia, England, and regions of the American Mid-west (where there were no [...]

Georgia: “One good thing about Jennifer Hudson’s family tragedy – two less Obama voters.” A 57-year old grandmother is killed in her home, as is her 29-year-old son. A seven-year-old child is missing and there is every reason to fear for his survival as well. And [a reader who commented as] “Dagny and John’s Love [...]

To riff off Bush/McCain’s mantra until they woke up last week: The fundamentalisms of our economy are strong. So here’s to some economic heresy. With Bush, Obama, McCain, and most of the media all urging us not to think there are alternatives to Main Street paying taxes for Wall Street – being economic fundamentalists spouting [...]