Peter Greene realized that supporters of public education have been lacking the very thing that catches the attention of the public and the media: reports backed by data. Especially reports that rank states as “the worst” and “the best.”
Greene’s Curmudgation Institute constructed rubrics to rate the states and developed the Public Education Hostility Index. He has created a website where he defines his methodogy and goes into detail about the rankings.
The #1 ranking, as the state most hostile to public education, is Florida.
The state least hostile to public education is Massachusetts.
Where does your state rank? Open the link and find out.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Florida is the state that is “most hostile to the public”.
No “schools” or any further clarification needed.
This is because it’s too close to Cuba hence to Communism.
Too close to Hell. The further south you go the closer you get.
I lived in Tucson, Arizona once and that was the closest to Hell I ever want to be. It was above 100 degrees about 6 months out of the year and about 115 at the peak of Summer.
That’s why people in the south tend to be more religious than in the north because they have to be due to the propinquity of Satan.
DeSatanist is down there in the Florida governor’s mansion at this very moment.
Do you think DeSantis is celebrating that Florida is #1 on the Public Education Hostility Index?
Nah, don’t blame right wing viciousness, nastiness and knucleheadedness on the climate or propinquity to the equator or hotter regions of the earth. There are plenty of right wing militias, Trumpers, hard core libertarians and other assorted GOP jerks in the northern snow bound states.
Tennessee is in dead heat with TX for the 14th place. I expect fierce battle which may propel both states to the top.
https://hostilityindex.wordpress.com/the-index/
It won’t be long before states are gaming the system to move up in the rankings.
I hear public flogging of teachers helps your ranking.
That’s what VAM was once used for in Los Angeles. One teacher died.
As former (Hee)Hawvid Economist John Friedman (who is now at Brown) once put it about the wonders of vAM
“The message is to fire people sooner rather than later”
And as his former Hee Hawvid colleague VAManujan (aka Raj Chettypicker) added “Of course there are going to be mistakes — teachers who get fired who do not deserve to get fired.” But he claimed (based on Chettypicked data) that using VAM would lead to fewer mistakes.
Chetty and Friedman were basking in the limelight for awhile, even banking on a (fake) Nobel Prize for their famous study ….until people with a clue , including members of the American Statistical Association pointed out the serious problems with VAM.
Poor Raj and John. No “Nobel” for them. Their fifteen minutes of Fame havel come and gone.
“Their fifteen minutes of Fame havel come and gone.”
All they have left is money. How sad for them.
I can imagine that in some states lawmakers are embarrassed that their states is so low on the rankings. I am sure TN is one of them.
And so they should be embarrassed to not be hostile to public schools and teachers.
For a right winger, that’s like admitting that you have no qualms with communism.
What is the level of hostility toward taxes and to public education?
A small private university finds itself talked about in the context of the largest tax evasion case in U.S. history. The government may well lose the case against the defendant because media report that a key witness who was given immunity has recently testified in a more favorable light to the defendant. The college’s wealthy benefactor who is the subject of the legal case, allegedly wanted, initially, to limit his scholarship gifts to students fluent in English and who could pass a physical fitness test. The donor (and his company) are reportedly active Republican contributors including to a conservative Texas Supreme Court judge.
NJ is in the least hostile to public education group and scored at #12, in the top group not that far behind Massachusetts. It helps having a governor (D) who is not hostile to public schools, the NJEA and teachers, as Christie was.
a key point: It HELPS having a governor who is not hostile to public schools and teachers …
Yes. And, it helps when the state’s senate majority and the house’s majority aren’t GOP.
Good for Peter Greene for tackling an opposition piece to the many lists and rankings from privatization hawks like DeVos and other assorted billionaires. “Lacking the resources to implement a sophisticated contextualizing model, we assigned scores based on our own less sophisticated approximating model.” His views remain as authentic as any other rating systems including those pesky, incoherent algorithms.
I would love to see someone rate and ranking the worst public school physical plants in the nation as we need to call attention to cities and towns with unhealthy, rotting physical plants, particularly since money for public schools was cut from the infrastructure bill. Perhaps concerned parents and teachers should send their concerns to the White House urging Biden and the Democrats to find a way to address this real health and safety issue. It never hurts to let those in power know that educators and parents are unhappy, and they vote.
We’re number 1!!!!
I call this Flor-uh-duh Exceptionalism.
As far as I’m concerned, Florida will always be number 2. 😎
Given all the water, I’d say number 3.
I’ll have you know, Greg, that the Platonic archetype of Number Twoness himself lives here in Flor-uh-duh! We are number one in having number twos!
Ohio is making news – the suspected crime that the FBI is looking at- “vigilante investigations” i.e. attempted hacking into election computers – the person mentioned relative to the attempted breach- elected GOP, of course.
And, of course, no story is complete without Mike Lindell’s name. Heads went up when screen shot’s (worthless drivel) from Ohio appeared at Lindell’s symposium in Aug. Then, the investigation began.
Georgetown Edunomics Lab meet the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) at Georgetown Law.
In the Bishop of Charleston v. Adams, ICAP is working with the NAACP “to defend against the erosion of public school funding in South Carolina.”
The part of Georgetown that’s not funded by Melinda Gates has a conscience? Now, that’s both funny and predictable.
Ed reform echo chamber strikes again:
“Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced $25 million in new grants in two states and nine cities — the latest in a series of initiatives by private donors and state and civic leaders — to boost promising career-pathway programs at a time when they are particularly suited to addressing educational inequities widened by COVID.
With the aim of maximizing the impact of their donations, a number of other philanthropies are collaborating with Bloomberg. Last week, the Walton Family Foundation announced $20 million in grants to nonprofits engaged in career development efforts, including a competitive grant program, the Catalyze Challenge, co-sponsored by the nonprofit American Student Assistance and the Charter School Growth Fund. Other Walton grantees include the think tank New America’s Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship which, among other things, uses data to identify promising initiatives, and Urban Alliance, which aims to increase employer participation in career preparation.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Charles Koch Institute and Walmart.org have also recently announced new or increased financial support for CTE. Building on research funded by Bloomberg, the education leadership incubator Chiefs for Change has issued recommendations for states and school districts that want to create programs or boost the effectiveness of existing ones.”
5 billionaires, and the people the billionaires hire, are designing our CTE policy.
The billionaires hire only people who agree with their agenda for the workforce, so it’s a perfect circle of lockstep opinion.
This is ed reform:
“Disclosure: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York provide financial support to The 74. The Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to The 74 and the Charter School Growth Fund”
It’s an echo chamber and now they’re designing workforce traning programs for 12 year olds. There is no diversity of opinion AT ALL in this “movement”.
Irony-
Johns Hopkins’ President recently made the case for universities as fundamental to democracy. I guess, we the citizens, should be unconcerned about wealthy donor spending in the J-H ed school and the impact of Bloomberg’s checkbook on the school’s focus or findings.
That Peter has ranked Massachusetts as the least hostile to public education is quite concerning – we’re no safe haven.
The governor appoints members of the state board, and 4 of them are dependent on the Waltons for their day jobs. The largest donors to Governor Baker himself are the Wlatons and the Kochs.
Several of our school systems – Lawrence, Holyoke, Springfield, Southbridge, for example, are under state control and the state is looking for any pretext it can find to take over Boston. Of course the success rate of school takeovers has been zero.
The response to Covid has been to concentrate power in the hands of the Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley, also appointed by Baker. Riley mandated a policy of no remote option and instituted an opt-in rather than an opt-out policy for pooled covid testing in schools. He should be consistent and follow the same guidelines for MCAS testing!
When a large K-8 school in Boston recently closed for 10 days after an outbreak of 46 covid cases across 21 classrooms, Riley announced that he would allow only 4 of those days to count towards the mandated 180 days of instruction.
We’re number 1? Yikes!