Archives for category: Network for Public Education
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Linda Lyon: Why Our Public Schools Matter

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2018 //
9

 

Linda Lyon is the president of the Arizona School Boards Association. She is a retired officer in the U.S. Air Force. She served her country in the military and continues to serve it by her participation in defense of public schools.

Colonel Lyon made this stirring video about democracy and public education. It is short and powerful. Please watch and share with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Show it to your PTA, the school board, the town council, the League of Women Voters, and every other group committed to strengthening the common good.

This video was sponsored by the Network for Public Education and produced, directed, and edited by Michael Elliott, a professional cinematigher

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Reform, Network for Public Education

Beat the GOP Tax Law: Contribute to NPE Now!

By dianeravitch
December 30, 2017 //
2

 

As accountants burn the midnight oil trying to figure out what is in the opaque new tax law, one thing is certain: You can still give to your favorite charities and claim deductions for 2017.

Show Trump and Congress that you will not be deterred by their tax bill that favors the 1%.

Give to your favorite charities now and take advantage of the law that remains in effect until 2018 begins.

Give whatever you can to the Network for Public Education.

Join us as we keep up the fight for equitably funded public schools, with small class sizes, experienced teachers, and a genuine commitment to the children they serve. Join us as we fight privatization, high-stakes testing, and profiteering. Join to support our research and advocacy for what is best for children.

Your gift is fully tax-deductible.

Categories Network for Public Education

John Kuhn Video Goes Viral! Explodes on Social Media!

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2017 //
4

John Kuhn’s powerful and passionate 2-minute video about inequitable funding has gone viral!

Released days ago, it has already had nearly 900,000 views!

Help it pass one million!

Watch, tweet, post, share.

http://bit.ly/JohnKuhnNPEJustice . And the

NPE Letter Writing Action http://bit.ly/FairlyFundSchools

We can’t match the billionaires money, but we can beat them with our numbers and the power of our voices!

Categories Funding, Inequity, Network for Public Education

John Kuhn Takes 2 Minutes to Identify the Real Culprit Behind Inequity in Funding Schools: MUST WATCH!

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2017 //
20

Please watch this two-minute video of John Kuhn, Texas Superintendent, who tells the story of two adjacent school districts, one rich, one poor. He explains with eloquence and passion why schools should be equitably funded and how unjust it is to fund schools differently and expect to get the same results.

This video is part of a series of short videos produced by Michael Elliott for the Network for Public Education.

Please watch it, tweet it, share it on your Facebook page, and wherever else you reach your friends and acquaintances. Send it to everyone you know.

Kuhn is powerful and eloquent on behalf of children, communities, public schools, justice, and equity.

Categories Equity, Funding, Network for Public Education, Supporting public schools

The Winner of the Five-Foot Shelf Is…..

By dianeravitch
December 2, 2017 //
26

David Bloom, who bid $580!

David is a regular reader and commenter on the Blog. He comments under a pseudonym. He is a teacher with a passion for books.

Thank you, David.

Every penny will go to support the work of the Network for Public Education.

And you will have a set of 50 volumes, personally selected by Charles Eliot and published in 1910.

Charles Eliot served as president of Harvard University from 1869 to 1909. Clearly, he decided to spend his free time assembling the best thought of his day, and now it is yours.

I will pack the set and send to you, along with an inscribed copy of one of my own books.

That was fun.

Categories Network for Public Education

The Highest Bid on the Five-Foot Shelf of Books NOW is $450!

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2017 //
1

On Wednesday, I invited you to bid on my personal 50-volume set of Charles Eliot’s Harvard Classics, published in 1910, and thus a first edition.

All proceeds go to the Network for Public Education. I will personally pack the books and bear the cost of shipping. All for a good cause.

As Of THIS MORNING, there were two bids for $450.

There is only one set. Please bid more.

If you wish to bid higher, contact Carol Burris at cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org

Bidding ends TONIGHT at 9 pm EST. I will announce the highest bid to offer one last chance. The winner will be announced Saturday morning. By name or anonymously, as you wish. Please be sure to let Carol know your mailing address. As soon as she gets your payment, I will ship the books.

A great Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/holiday gift for someone who loves books!

Categories Network for Public Education

Do You Want to Bid on My Set of the 50-Volume Harvard Classics?

By dianeravitch
November 29, 2017 //
11

Here is a chance to buy a wonderful gift for yourself or your favorite bibliophile.

I am auctioning off my 50-volume set of the Charles Eliot’s Harvard Classics. It is in good-to-very good condition. Some of the pages are uncut. None of the books are damaged.

The volumes are: (1) Franklin, Woolman, Penn (2) Plato, Epictetus, Marcus, Aurelius (3) Bacon, Milton’s Prose, Thomas Browne (4) Complete Poems in English: Milton (5) Essays and English Traits: Emerson (6) Poems and Songs: Burns (7) Confessions of St. Augustine. Imitation of Christ (8) Nine Greek Dramas (9) Letters and Treatises of Cicero and Pliny (10) Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith (11) Origin of Species: Darwin (12) Plutarch’s Lives (13) Aeneid Virgil (14) Don Quixote Part 1: Cervantes (15)Pilgrim’s Progress. Donne and Herbert. Bunyan, Walton (16) The Thousand and One Nights (17) Folk-Lore and Fable. Aesop, Grimm, Andersen (18) Modern English Drama (19) Faust, Egmont Etc. Doctor Faustus, Goethe, Marlowe (20) The Divine Comedy: Dante (21) I Promessi Sposi, Manzoni (22) The Odyssey: Homer (23) Two Years Before the Mast. Dana (24) On the Sublime French Revolution Etc. Burke (25) Autobiography Etc. Essays and Addresses: J.S. Mill, T. Carlyle (26) Continental Drama (27) English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay (28) Essays. English and American (29) Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin (30) Faraday, Helmholtz, Kelvin, Newcomb, Geikie (31) Autobiography: Benvenuto, Cellini (32) Literary and Philosophical Essays: Montaigne, Sainte Beuve, Renan, Lessing, Schiller, Kant, Mazzini (33) Voyages and Travels (34) Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hobbes (35) Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed (36) Machiavelli, More, Luther (37) Locke, Berkeley, Hume (38) Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Pasteur (39) Famous Prefaces (40) English Poetry 1: Chaucer to Gray (41) English Poetry 2: Collins to Fitzgerald (42) English Poetry 3: Tennyson to Whitman (43) American Historical Documents (44) Sacred Writings 1 (45) Sacred Writings 2 (46) Elizabethan Drama 1 (47) Elizabethan Drama 2 (48) Thoughts and Minor Works: Pascal (49) Epic and Saga (50) Introduction, Readers Guide, Indexes (–) Lectures.

It is known as the Five Foot Shelf.

It is a first edition, dated 1910. I bought the set about 35 years ago from a bookstore in Philadelphia. Some sets, like this one, have 50 volumes; others have 51 or 52.

I was going to sell it on EBay, but I decided instead that it would be a good fundraiser for the Network for Public Education.

The opening bid is $200.

Here is the way it works. Send your bid to Carol Burris. She will report the highest bid to me each night. I will announce it at 8:30 a.m. each day, and the “auction” will end Friday night. The winner will be announced Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. (anonymously, if you prefer).

The winner will send a check or money order made out to “The Network for Public Education,” along with name and address to Carol Burris. I will pack the books and mail them to the winner.

The winner will get a fabulous set of great classics and the satisfaction of helping a good cause.

Send your bid to Carol Burris at:

cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org

If you win, send your check to her at:

The Network for Public Education
PO BOX 150266
Kew Gardens, NY 11415-0266

If you want to make a donation to the Network, please send it to this address.

Categories Network for Public Education

#GivingTuesday: Please Give to The Network for Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 28, 2017 //
0

Please add The Network for Public Education to the list of charitable organizations you support.

Please donate to support our work.
NPE fights for better, stronger public schools.

We vigorously oppose Betsy DeVos’ privatization agenda.

NPE connects activists within and between states. It builds coalitions of people who resist privatization of public schools, high-stakes testing, and corporate invasions of student privacy.

This is our work:

We believe that our society must invest more in its children; that schools should be equitably funded; that teachers should be well-prepared professionals and should be respected and paid as professionals; that all children deserve an excellent education and a curriculum that includes the arts, physical education, history, civics, literature, foreign languages, mathematics, and science; that every school should have small classes, a library with trained librarians; a school nurse; a psychologist and social worker; well-maintained facilities; up-to-date technology, accessible to all students; that public schools should be democratically controlled, academically and financially transparent. We believe that all students should have the opportunity to play an instrument, to perform in an orchestra or a jazz band or a string quartet or alone, to dance in a group or alone, to act in plays, to sing in a chorus, to paint and draw and sculp and engage in whatever artistic expression interests them.

We believe in our teachers and principals. We admire and respect their work.

Help us in our work, as we fight for better public schools for every child.

Categories Education Reform, Network for Public Education

Save the Date: #NPE18Indy on October 20-21, 2018!

By dianeravitch
November 27, 2017 //
10

Exciting news!

The Network for Public Education will hold our 5th Annual National Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 20-21, 2018.

You are invited!

We are jumping right into the heart of Mike Pence country, abetted by our great grassroots Hoosier allies.

We will once again line up great speakers, organize wonderful panels, and we promise you a weekend of inspiration, support, encouragement, and good fellowship.

Mark the date and plan to join us.

See you in Indy!

Categories Indiana, Network for Public Education

MUST READ! A Major Report on Charter Schools by the Network for Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2017 //
19

The first law authorizing charter schools was authorized by Minnesota in 1991, and the first charter school opened in St. Paul in 1992. The original idea of charters was that they would enroll students with high-needs, would try new approaches, and would share what they learned with the public schools. They were not intended to be competitors with public schools, but to be akin to research and development centers, abetting the work of the public schools.

Now, 25 years later, the charter sector has burgeoned into nearly 7,000 schools enrolling some three million students. Some charters are corporate chains. Some are religious in character. Some operate for profit. Some are owned and run by non-educators.

Instead of collaborating with public schools, most compete for students and resources. Instead of serving the neediest students, many choose the students who are likeliest to succeed.

It is time for a thorough inquiry into the status and condition of charter schools today, and that is what Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, has done in this report.

An experienced high school principal, Burris has traveled the country, visiting charter schools and talking to parents, teachers, students, and administrators.

Not only has she examined many charters, she reviews the marketing of charters and their fiscal impact on traditional public schools. Policy makers have not expanded the funding at the state or local level to pay for new charters. Instead, they have cut funding for the public schools that typically enroll 85-90% of students. Thus, most students will have larger classes and fewer curriculum choices because of the funding taken away for charter schools. Burris also analyzes the report on charters by the NAACP and the response to it by charter advocates.

This is neither fair nor just nor wise.

This is the only post you will see today, except for a graphic that will pop up in an hour or so.

Take the time to read the entire report.

Let me know what you think.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Network for Public Education, Privatization
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