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It has been nearly 50 years since Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, pulling the curtain back on invisible poverty within the United States. If he were writing today, Harrington would find the same populations he described then: young, marginally educated people who drift in and out of low-pay, dead-end jobs, and older displaced workers, unable to find work as industries transform and shops close. But he would find more of them, especially the young, their situation worsened by further economic restructuring and globalization. And while the poor he wrote about were invisible in a time of abundance, ours are visible in a terrible recession, although invisible in most public policy. In fact, the poor are drifting further into the dark underbelly of American capitalism.

In 1988, U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett proclaimed Chicago's public schools to be the worst in the nation. Since that time, Chicago has been at the forefront of urban school reform. Beginning with a dramatic move in 1990 to move power away from the central office, through CEO Paul Vallas's use of standardized testing to hold schools and students accountable for teaching and learning, and into CEO Arne Duncan's bold plan to create 100 new schools in five years, Chicago has attempted to boost academic achievement through a succession of innovative policies. Each wave of reform has brought new practices, programs, and policies that have interacted with the initiatives of the preceding wave. And with each successive wave of reform this fundamental question has been raised: Has progress been made at Chicago Public Schools (CPS)?

This message from Commissioner King looks more in-depth at the Common Core, data-driven instruction, educator practice, and network teams.

America's urban public schools are in trouble: Student test scores are low and dropout rates are high. Recent remedies proposed include everything from reducing the power of teachers unions and opening more charter schools to ending test-based accountability. But what if education critics are focused on the wrong problem?

"I wonder when exactly the word reformer was cheapened to a political sound bite. When did billionaires buy it and re-define it by the crass rules of the marketplace?"

A Failing School? Not to These Students

A low-performing Manhattan high school that was granted up to $6 million in extra funds to undergo a "transformation" has found the secret formula for success: Dumb down the requirements for students to pass.

Video of Commissioner King's presentation at the NYSCOSS Fall Conference on Superintendent Leadership and the Regents Reform Agenda.

Presentation to NYS School Superintendents.

Pearson is a London-based mega-corporation that owns everything from the Financial Times to Penguin Books, and also dominates the business of educating American children. The company promotes its many education-related products on a website that features an idyllic, make-believe town. It's called Pearsonville, and it looks like the international conglomerate version of SimCity. In this virtual town, school buses whizz through tree-lined streets, and the city center features skyscrapers and a tram. Tabs pop up to show you just how many Pearson products are available. A red schoolhouse features young kids using Pearson products to learn math (with Pearson's enVision Math) and take standardized tests online. Nearby, at the Pearsonville high school, students use the company's online instructional materials to study science. The high school also features online testing. Pearson online courses are available at the town library. At the model home, parents can use Pearson's student information system to track their children's grades. The "test centre," not shockingly, provides even more testing options. It's a beautiful little town. A Las Vegas-style sign welcomes you, while a biplane flies through the sky trailing a Pearson banner behind it.

New York City schools are broadly failing to meet the needs of many of their thousands of students who are still learning English, and they must improve or they may face sanctions, state education officials announced Wednesday.