Education

In spite of growing opposition to the unpopular and extreme policies being passed by the state’s conservative legislature, Kansans most generally stay at home and keep their opinions to themselves.

Speaking at the American Association of Community Colleges convention, Vice President Joe Biden announced a national program that would allow participants in apprenticeship programs to receive academic credit for their experience.

Parents and public school advocates staged a dramatic protest outside the New York City Department of Education on Tuesday against a bid, backed by Governor Andrew Cuomo and financed by Wall Street lobbyists, to evict special needs students in order to make room for charter school expansion.

Since the economic downturn in 2008, education funding has dropped in Oklahoma more than in any other state. When teachers held a rally last week at the state capitol, the tea party conservatives got upset — not at the estimated 22 percent cut in education funds, but at the "self-righteousness" of holding the rally on a school day.

After unsuccessfully mansplaining equal pay for three weeks, Greg Abbott, the Republican frontrunner for Texas governor, finally changed the subject by citing the work of conservative libertarian scholar Charles Murray, a "white nationalist" who opposes universal pre-K. "Oops" doesn't quite cut it, but this is more than a simple gaffe. Using Murray's research could lead Republicans toward education policies that rely more upon eugenics than on equality.

At today's State Board of Education meeting, Governor Dannel "Dan" Malloy's appointees will vote to re-commit Connecticut to the Common Core and then vote to divert scarce public funds to new charter schools in Connecticut. Four new charter school applications are up for vote today, and some of them have some scary ties to the Malloy Administration.

The education privatizers are trying to convince us that parental 'choice' will solve all the problems in our schools. But the choice they have in mind is to dismantle a once-proud system of education that was nurtured and funded by a society of Americans willing to work together.

The millennials may be the first generation in American history to be worse off than their parents. Despite ever-growing improvements in technology and worker productivity, increasing numbers of college graduates in their 20's and 30's are returning home to live with mom and dad. They are drowning in a sea of red ink. The problem, of course, is college affordability. However, there is something that Congress can do to alleviate some of the pain.

The Education Department reported the continued disparities faced by minorities in the US' public schools. Suspensions and punishments for black children begin at the earliest age, starting in preschool.