Nerd News: 3 Thoughts

There are a few stories that crossed my path recently:

• Teacher training's favorite myths
• Taking aim at charter schools
• HERESY!  (It also happens to be the truth.)

Nerd News: Idiotic Opinion Is Idiotic

This opinion is aggressively stupid.  James Taranto explains why.  You know, I'm getting sick of people mouthing off about public education and being self-righteous, bullying idiots about it.  This latest ... effluence reminds me of how pretty-faced Hollywood numbskull Matt Damon went on and on about how we need to support public schools and then promptly (of course) put his own kids in some posh private school (quelle surprise).

Nerd News: Private Tutors in South Korea

A few thoughts.

Nerd News: Why Catholic Schools Still Matter

Still the best hope for poor, inner-city kids?

Nerd News: In Support of Charter Schools

Read this.  What do you think?  Here's a bit of it:

The fight for charter schools — to have more of them, to make them work better, and to give more children (and teachers and principals) the chance to participate in them — is one of the most important fronts in the struggle to build an America that can thrive in the 21st century. ... School choice will make our society more flexible and entrepreneurial — and the biggest immediate beneficiaries will be the poor and those who seek to serve and teach them in creative new ways.

Edu-punktastic!

Nerd News: JUST DO IT

Do it!  Resurrect the DC school voucher program!  DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN.  Let the unions howl if need be.  Forcing students to remain in failing schools is an outrage.

Nerd News: Public School Teachers More Likely To Place Own Kids in Private Schools

Hmmmmmmmm. Here are some numbers:

More than 25 percent of public school teachers in Washington and Baltimore send their children to private schools, a new study reports.

Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.

In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.

In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent; Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose private schools for their children; 33 percent in New York City and New Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New Orleans.

Michael Pons, spokesman for the National Education Association, the 2.7-million-member public school union, declined a request for comment on the study's findings. The American Federation of Teachers also declined to comment.

Nerd News: School Choice in the New Orleans Education Revolution

Read this.  What a delightful change from the DC debacle!

Nerd News: The Education Debacle of the Decade

Read it and weep.  Then go fight for change.

Nerd News: P.J. O'Rourke Versus Public Schools

Throwdown! O'Rourke is as piquant and humorous as ever. Edupunk-tastic!

RELATED POST: Let's dump the US Department of Education.

UPDATE: To continue this theme of taking potshots at the educational establishment, take a listen to this uproarious prank call by a delightful 8-year-old Irish girl:

Obama and Pre-College Educational Policy

Fail.

You already know what I'm going to say. Lucky for me, someone else has already done a write-up so I don't have to. The needless and politically motivated killing of the DC voucher program is UNFORGIVABLE.

You will recall the takeover of college loans.

Nerd News: Parents Rally in Favor of DC School Vouchers

The entire situation is a government-sponsored disgrace (as documented here and here), but the MSM has not covered this AT ALL. Shameful.

See coverage of yesterday's rally here and here. More than 1000 concerned parents and other folks who care about quality education were involved.

A piquant bit of reporting: "A father of a scholarship student pointed out the hypocrisy of Congress bailing out failing corporations but taking scholarships away from D.C. students."

I am tempted to label this mess "felony stupidity," but I have a nasty feeling that the Congressional rascals involved weren't acting out of idiocy as much as cynical kissing-up to special interests (like teachers' unions, etc.).

Nerd News: DC School Voucher Disgrace

This is a follow-up to a previous post about the Congress killing the DC school voucher program -- and taking choice away from low-income parents hoping to give their children a better education.

See this piquant op-ed on school choice and the hypocrisy of the governing elite.

Reason.Com has a good video criticizing the voucher disgrace. Watch it:



Great quote from an outraged mother: "This has become about politics and not about children." Also: she was an Obama voter.

Nerd News: DC School Voucher Rant

Juan Williams is ranting passionately about education -- and therefore saving me from having to do so. And the decline of American high school education continues apace while feckless politicians wheel and deal -- and fritter away our future both in terms economic AND educational.

For the record, I am all for school choice and vouchers, oh yes.