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"More than 250,000 pre-K, elementary, junior high and high school aged children - many of them disabled and of color - are restrained or put into isolation each year for behaving in ways that are considered disruptive or threatening."

"We hear the same refrain across the nation: public sector pensions are destroying our economy. The modest pensions paid to teachers, police officers, firefighters, and social workers are a threat to our future."

"Justice in education---the idea that schools distribute opportunity to all children---must be systemic. A public education system like ours in the United States---publicly funded, universally available, and accountable to the public---is the best way I know to balance the needs of each particular child with society's responsibility to protect the rights of all children. While there are some excellent charter schools, I believe the growing charter school movement threatens our system of public education."

"In the rush to privatize the country's schools, corporations and politicians have decimated school budgets, replaced teaching with standardized testing, and placed the blame on teachers and students."

"This is a life-or-death time for the American Federation of Teachers. The July 12-14, 2014, convention reflected both positive movement, and continuing obstacles, for our union. As we take on the challenges we all face with the opening of schools, we AFT members will face both from our union. Much will depend on how successfully we get our union to respond."

"David C. Berliner and Gene V. Glass have offered to answer a few questions about their book, 50 Myths & Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools."

"What's got teachers stirred up? How real and potent is this upsurge of their activism? Why should people who identify with progressive causes care? Salon recently posed those questions, and others, to Lily Eskelsen García, the new president-elect of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, at the recent Netroots Nation conference in Detroit."

"I'm sure you've heard for years-even decades-that the public schools are failing; that teachers are lazy, incompetent and their labor unions are responsible for this so-called failure. The solution: fire the teachers, close the public schools and get rid of the labor unions. Then turn education over to private sector corporations run by CEOs who only answer to their wealthiest stock holders. For instance, Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, the Walton family, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdock and a flock of Hedge Fund billionaires. Let's see what you think after we go back to 1779 and walk through 235 years of history to the present. It won't take long-a few facts and a conclusion."

"Death by a Thousand Cuts: Racism, School Closures, and Public School Sabotage, a stunning report released this week by Journey for Justice (J4J), cuts through the ideological babble on school "reform" and lets us listen as "voices from America's affected communities of color"-parents, students, and community leaders-tell us how school closures and privatization are affecting them, their neighborhoods, and their children."

"Myths, though not real, are powerful and shape behavior. Thwarting tenure laws is a first step in the larger, well-publicized project of dismantling teacher unions. And if the California case is a harbinger, this aim may not be far off. But what will any of this accomplish? Are teacher tenure laws or their unions the root cause of teacher quality issues and persistent achievement gaps? The historical record offers a resounding no."

"A judge said the state discriminates against poor and minority students by protecting the jobs of ineffective instructors. What will this mean for education?"

"Market-based education reform has become a mainstay of American politics - and it's a disaster waiting to happen"

"The rhetoric behind vouchers is that if everyone had vouchers parents could select the best school for their child instead of being forced to go to "government" schools*. Where does such logic fall apart? There are two main logistical reasons it is really a false promise. One is economic and the other is question of who gets to choose."

"The biggest threat to education today is the corporate education reform movement-what many of us call "Ed Deform." It is also the biggest threat to teachers' working conditions."

"Every injustice in American life can be laid at the feet of the richest people in the country and the politicians who do their bidding. Nowhere is that terrible dynamic more obvious than in the destruction of public education by the charter school system."

"The same billionaires who just bought the New York State Senate now want to own public education. It's starve, test, and destroy."

"Friday, a column in the New York Times cited research in genetic markers associated with resilience to advance what I believe would lead to the practice of Eugenics in our schools. Eugenics was quite popular in the 1920s. The basic idea was that society would benefit by encouraging reproduction of those most genetically "fit, and actively discouraging those determined to be unfit. The project was discredited when it became the foundation of Hitler's racist program to establish the "master race.""

"Plans are under way for investment corporations to execute the biggest conversion - some call it theft - of public schools property in U.S. history. That is not hyperbole. Investment bankers themselves estimate that their taking over public schools is going to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, if they can pull it off."

"President Barack Obama pretends to be a friend of public education, but it just is not so. Sure, the White House offers a decorative promotional on K12 education; however, if one reads it closely, one sees that the Obama administration believes education (and, by extension, those educated) should serve the economy; that "higher standards and better assessments" and "turning around our lowest achieving schools" is No Child Left Behind (NCLB) leftover casserole, and that "keeping teachers in the classroom" can only elicit prolonged stares from those of us who know better. All of these anti-public-education truths noted, the deeper story in what the Obama administration values regarding American education lay in its selection of US Department of Education (USDOE) appointees. Their backgrounds tell the story, and it isn't a good one for the public school student, the community school and the career K12 teacher. In this post, I examine the backgrounds and priorities of eight key USDOE appointees. "