Union-Tribune Editorial: A Spurious Attack on Teachers and Public Education
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican An editorial in The San Diego Union Tribunesays that Democrats in the Trump era see themselves as protecting the disadvantaged but that's not true when it comes to schools....
View ArticleSTEM and Education Tech: Two But Not Two Frauds
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican Last year, IBIS Capital produced a report for EdTechXGlobal stating, “Education technology is becoming a global phenomenon, … the market is projected to grow at 17.0% per...
View ArticleSelling Education Technology Via the Federal Education Technology Plan
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican In January, the Office of Education Technology, a unit of the U.S. Department of Education, released its 2017 National Education Technology Plan Update (NETP). The update...
View ArticlePersonalized and Blended Learning are Money Grabs
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican Big tech and their friends at big banking have turned to public education budgets for a new profit center. In the latest version of the federal education law, compliant...
View ArticleThe National Math and Science Initiative: Bad Education Policies Based on...
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican Last week, I got this message from a colleague in the Sweetwater Union High School District: “You doing ok, Brother Ultican? I have a question for you. In your tireless...
View ArticleReaders Write: Inexperienced, Untrained Administrators Destabilize...
When cronyism, politics, and inexperience become the norm in hiring public school administrators, and the practice of hiring people with actual knowledge and "know how" is set aside, teachers suffer...
View ArticleRethink and Rollback the Expansion of AP and IB in Schools
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican What if the education reform ideology is wrong? What if the ideology of reform was based on an incorrect understanding of developmentally appropriate pedagogy? In a 2006...
View ArticleAmerican-Style Taliban Invading Public Education
Christian soldiers have been marching off to war and elementary school is the battle ground. Writer Katherine Stewart’s book, "The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s...
View ArticleThe Problem With Online Charter Schools | Video Worth Watching
Vox’s Liz Sheltens and Mallory Brangan break down the issues for the case of online charter schools. [Read more...]
View ArticleThe Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) Back-Stabs Public...
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican ACSA endorsed a candidate for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction who actively works to privatize public schools. As a participant in the Destroy Public...
View ArticleDenver’s Schools are a Dystopian Nightmare
A group of Democratic politicians aligned with local monied interests decided to “save” Denver’s public schools. The man chosen to turn-around the “failing” school system was Michael Bennet, now the...
View ArticleStandards-Based Education Reform is Toxic
In 1983, lawyers, business titans and famous scientists ushered in the era of standards-based reform with the infamous “A Nation at Risk.” This political polemic masquerading as a scholarly paper...
View ArticleTeachers, Guns, and Money
The generalized rage and indiscriminate, spectacular violence that characterized the first year of the Trump era shows no sign of abating. In the wake of yet another horrifying mass murder at a school...
View ArticleDestroy Public Education (DPE) for Dummies
America’s public education system is being deliberately destroyed. If you graduated from high school in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s or 80’s, it is such an unthinkable concept that it is difficult to even...
View ArticleCan Schools Discipline Students for Protesting?
By Vera Eidelman / ACLU - Speak Freely Students around the country are turning last week’s heartbreaking school shooting in Parkland, Florida, into an inspiring and exemplary push for legislative...
View ArticleMarshall Tuck’s Dirty Secret: How Right-Wing Money Infiltrates Democratic...
Recently in the lead up to the Janus vs. AFSCME case that hit the Supreme Court last week, I wrote several columns focusing on the impact of the Koch brothers’ network’s attack on the union movement,...
View ArticleWest Virginia Teachers Show Why Unions Matter | Women’s History Month
It is illegal for public employees to strike in the state of West Virginia. The teachers have gone all-in anyway, and are currently in the eighth day of a wildcat strike that encompasses all of West...
View ArticleThe Awful Plight of Washington D.C. Schools Reveals the Failure of...
Washington D.C. schools are classified as a portfolio district by the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). CRPE is the Bill Gates-funded think tank on the campus of the University of...
View ArticleNotes from the Class War: the West Virginia Strike Shows That Solidarity Wins
In the early days of the Trump administration, most savvy observers were quick to note that, populist bluster aside, Trump’s policies would be a disaster for America’s already historic level of...
View ArticleDeVos Damages to Detroit Schools: A Crime in Progress
The destroy public education (DPE) movement’s most egregious outcome may be in Detroit and it is being driven by a virulent Christian ideology. In 2001, Dick and Betsy DeVos answered questions for the...
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