The lessons of this fiasco are clear: being a successful business executive is no guarantee that one can become a successful school leader. These are different worlds, which require different skills and training. To have a chance of success running one of the country's largest school systems, one needs a deep understanding of federal and state education policies, of curriculum and assessment, of teaching and learning, and of what teachers and schools need.

Unions, as a collective representation of working people, can be an incredibly powerful counter-force to corporate interests. Individual working people can have very little impact on policy because they do not have the financial prowess on their own to affect national policy the way those with a good deal of money at their disposal can. I am proud to be a member of a union, and I am very proud of my fellow UFT members. But when union leadership becomes too far-removed from the lived reality of their rank-and-file members and spends a significant amount of their time with the very people who are pushing the policies they should be fighting, they run the risk of losing sight of their mission.

I've spent a large part of my adult life criticizing the flawed institutions and policies of public education as a teacher, an education activist, and a policy advocate. But these days I find myself spending a lot of time defending the very idea of public education against those who say, sometimes literally, it should be blown up. Because the increasingly polarized national debate around education policy is not just about whether teachers feel the sting of public criticism or whether school budgets suffer another round of budget cuts in a society that has its priorities seriously upside down.

video footage of over 250,000 out in London to protest cuts to pubic services

space promised fo new public school in Washington heights started by Central Park East Principal Julie Zuckerman yanked at last minute and given to KIPP

This article has been around for a few years but continues to be relevant. Kozol contextualizes provides a good summary of the push to privatize public education. The most striking part of the article is the quote from where the title is taken, "The larger developing opportunity is in the K-12 EMO market, led by private elementary school providers", which, they emphasize, "are well positioned to exploit potential political reforms such as school vouchers". From the point of view of private profit, one of these analysts enthusiastically observes, "the K-12 market is the Big Enchilada". Kozol has shedding light on educational inequities for years. With this piece he warns of the dangers of ignoring just how motivated corporate interests are to move beyond "nibbling at the edges" of public schools and devour the whole system.

Juan Goonzalez on the connections between charters and Wall Street

Dianne Ravitch appearance on the Daily Show. Redirects dialogue from "finding the bad teachers" to grappling with the realities of the impact of poverty and inequity on famlies and schools

Site for people looking for "great schools near apartments you can afford." Interesting to think about who the "you " is in this sentence. Search function includes "Nearest Starbucks"....

http://www.corrugate.org/granito_de_arena/project_support For over 20 years, global economic forces have been dismantling public education in Mexico, but always in the constant shadow of popular resistance... Granito de Arena is the story of that resistance - the story of hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers whose grassroots, non-violent movement took Mexico by surprise, and who have endured brutal repression in their 25-year struggle for social and economic justice in Mexico's public schools. Completed in 2005, Granito de Arena provides context and background to the unprecedented popular uprising that exploded in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2006. "

Walker held up a photo of President Ronald Reagan, who had famously fired striking air-traffic controllers, and said his plan to sweep away decades of protections for state public employees in a stop-gap budget bill represented "our time to change the course of history." "It was kind of the last hurrah before we dropped the bomb," he said. The budget-repair bill, which would strip most collective-bargaining rights from 175,000 public-sector workers while imposing immediate benefits concessions, went public four days later. Walker, a Republican, called for passage in the GOP-controlled Legislature within a week. Word of the bill's union provisions started to trickle out in press reports Thursday night, which for union chiefs and organizers began what one described as "a freakout of a long weekend."

Rachel Maddow places struggle in historical and political context

"The jabs Erin Parker has heard about her job have stunned her. Oh you pathetic teachers, read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage. Related * Ohio Senate Approves Union Bill (March 3, 2011) * Leader of Teachers' Union Urges Dismissal Overhaul (February 25, 2011) Related in Opinion Room For Debate Why Blame the Teachers? Across America, teachers have become the targets of criticism and budget cuts. Do they deserve it? Enlarge This Image Narayan Mahon for The New York Times Erin Parker teaches high school science in Wisconsin. Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. * Read All Comments (675) » "You feel punched in the stomach," said Ms. Parker, a high school science teacher in Madison, Wis., where public employees' two-week occupation of the State Capitol has stalled but not deterred the governor's plan to try to strip them of bargaining rights. "

"In January, at a meeting of parent coordinators from a number of schools, employees of the office asked them to forge relationships with parents who they thought might speak out in support of the department's policies, including its controversial push to close failing schools. "

"Nor have charters been the answer. Charter school students score about the same on state tests as Detroit district students, even though charters have fewer special education students (8 percent versus 17 percent in the district) and fewer poor children (65 percent get subsidized lunches versus 82 percent at district schools). It's hard to know whether children are better off under these "reforms" or they're just being moved around more."

"A Manhattan woman has sued a $19,000-a-year preschool her daughter attended, arguing that the program failed to adequately prepare her daughter for the test required to enter New York City's hypercompetitive private school system. "

THE COST of K-12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national debate on education; sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms; and determine public policy at the local, state, and national levels. In the domain of venture philanthropy-where donors decide what social transformation they want to engineer and then design and fund projects to implement their vision-investing in education yields great bang for the buck.