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In 1968, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) went on strike over the involuntary transfer of 19 teachers by a newly empowered community-controlled school board in New York City's Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood. The controversies at the heart of that bitter struggle live on in current debates over the methods of teacher selection, the role of seniority and due process in teacher assignment, and the appropriateness of affirmative action in the composition of urban teaching corps. Then, as now, the role of educators of color in urban school districts was an issue that sparked controversy. In recounting how rules for teacher selection evolved in New York, Christina Collins' book, "Ethnically Qualified", Race, Merit and the Selection of Urban Teachers, 1920-1980, illuminates the failure of the city's teachers' unions to effectively challenge the exclusion and marginalization of African American teachers.

Educators make bad prognosticators of the future. There is no shame in that. Politicians, stock-market players, CEOs, and gamblers, people with a lot at stake, routinely fail in their predictive efforts. But when school "reformers" try to reorder education based on "21st-century skills," or what some describe as "teaching tomorrow's skills to today's students," they show not only lack of prescience, but also ignorance of the past.

Last October, a friend called with a question: "What do you know about Stand for Children?" The advocacy organization, based in our hometown of Portland, Ore., was expanding into his state of Illinois, and he hoped to glean some insight into the kinds of reforms the group would support. Just two months later, Stand's Illinois branch had amassed more than $3 million in a political action committee and unveiled an aggressive teacher evaluation bill.

America's teachers have long struggled to gain respect and satisfactory working conditions.  Toward that goal, in 1916 the New York City Teachers Union was formed.  Modest in its objectives, the organization essentially sought decent salaries and recognition for teachers as professionals. 

With approximately 500 tax-exempt bond transactions completed to date, the charter school sector of the municipal market continues to gain size and momentum and has emerged as much more than a fragmented niche for high yield investors. The growth rate in the number of charter schools across the country - now exceeding 5,000 - is expected to increase due to the heightened focus that policymakers at all levels of government have placed on results-driven education reform. This growth will generate greater charter school demand for affordable facility financing, a demand that is well met by the tax-exempt bond market with its tax-exempt interest rates and longer principal repayment periods. To date, however, fewer than 8% of charter schools have accessed the market for their permanent facility financing needs.

"In a 1988 address, Mr. Shanker outlined an idea for a new kind of public school where teachers could experiment with fresh and innovative ways of reaching students. Mr. Shanker estimated that only one-fifth of American students were well served by traditional classrooms. In charter schools, teachers would be given the opportunity to draw upon their expertise to create high-performing educational laboratories from which the traditional public schools could learn."

"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."

"This commentary traces the transition of education policy from the Bloomberg-Klein years to the current administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina a year into their tenure."

"It's a plan reviled by teachers, loathed by parents, and decried by local politicians, but against huge opposition, York may become the third city in America to privatize the entirety of one of its public school districts. How did a public school system in the midstate rise to the forefront of a national experiment in education reform? And how did an entire community lose control of its own decision-making ability? The answer to both those questions, education researchers and public watchdogs say, lies in large part on a concerted, multi-million dollar campaign over the past decade by for-profit schools to alter Pennsylvania law. Those changes, and the industry lobbying that continues behind-the-scenes, have implications for teachers and students across the entire state. It's a subject we have tackled in a series entitled "The Rise of Charter Schools in Pa.""

"Democracy requires a commitment to the public good. But for a long time now, our citizens have been taught to see themselves as only private actors."