Education
International Students Misled Into Human Trafficking Scam In Iowa
Antonio Diego, 24, a Brazilian student in Sioux City on a J1 visa. Photo courtesy of Sioux City Journal Fifty-seven international students studying at a state technical college in Sioux City are being exploited in school and on the job after being lured to Iowa...
Have Democrats Changed Course On Charters?
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet wants you to know how much he cares—really cares—about education. Speaking at the Public Education Forum 2020, Bennet began his remarks by declaring he is “the first school superintendent in the history of America to...
Charter Schools' Billion-Dollar Fraud Stinks Worse Than We Thought
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr / cc Earlier this year, when members of Congress repeatedly confronted U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos about a study finding the federal government’s charter school grant program had wasted an estimated $1 billion on...
Mayor Pete, Get Big Money Out Of Your Campaign
What will it take to get big money out of politics? As a voter and a student, that’s what I want to know from any candidate who wants my vote, so I asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg this when he visited our campus – Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa – this weekend....
Striking Teachers Are Fighting For Much More Than Paychecks
While national news outlets hail the conclusion of a historic teacher strike in Chicago, another important story often overlooked by national reporters is the ongoing struggle to defend public education in the months that follow successful strikes. In Oakland,...
Wait, It Gets Worse: Eli Broad's School Corruption Legacy
Photo credit: arcticpenguin / flickr / cc Billionaire charter-school boosters like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Eli Broad and have turned school leadership into a cartel system focused on advancing careers and enriching businesses. One can see, in the track...
How Charter-School Billionaires Corrupt School Leadership
Westport High School, one of 26 Kansas City schools closed by John Covington It’s rare when goings-on in Kansas City, Missouri schools make national headlines, but in 2011 the New York Times reported on the sudden departure of the district’s superintendent John...
How Private Search Firms Skim Millions From Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Photo credit: City Club of Chicago / cc In July 2013, the education world was rocked when a breaking story by Chicago independent journalist Sarah Karp reported that district CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett had pushed...
College For All Means Dignity For All
My name is Chris Simmons, and I want to tell you why we need - I need - Free College For All now. I grew up in Newton, Iowa, a small city east of Des Moines. For a hundred years, Newton was the “washing machine capital of the world.” It was home to the Maytag...
Flint's Crisis Reveals National Failure On School 'Leadership'
Flint, Michigan, became a national poster child for incompetence and corruption when a small group of autocratic officials put in charge by the state’s governor made the infamous decision to supply lead-tainted water to the public. But long before Flint’s water...
