Monthly Archives: February 2013

Unions and charters are strange bedfellows

Posted on February 28, 2013 by garyrubinstein

When you ask the leader of an allegedly high performing charter school what makes them so successful, they generally say that they have more flexibility with hiring and firing since they are free from pesky union contracts.  This is why … Continue reading →

Posted in Research | 12 Comments

Self-Contained Urban Boredom Apparatus

Posted on February 27, 2013 by garyrubinstein

In November I visited the KIPP High School in New York City and summarized some of what I saw in a blog post.  I’ve decided to write more about what I saw there in a series of shorter blog posts.  … Continue reading →

Posted in KIPP visit | 4 Comments

A Tale of Two Open Letters

Posted on February 27, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Wendy Kopp announced that she is stepping down as CEO of Teach For America, and around that time on The Huffington Post, a TFA alum named Kate Casas wrote an open letter to Wendy.  This letter was in stark contrast … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America | 1 Comment

Overheard at KIPP

Posted on February 23, 2013 by garyrubinstein

In November I visited the KIPP high school in New York City and wrote about it.  Trying to be diplomatic and maybe even be invited to come back some time, I left out some things that I wanted to write … Continue reading →

Posted in KIPP visit, Teach For America | 16 Comments

Inspirational quote on a KIPP teacher’s classroom door

Posted on February 21, 2013 by garyrubinstein

I visited KIPP High School in New York City a few months ago and wrote about it.  My post was pretty generous — perhaps too generous — so I’m going to write more about what I saw there in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Debunking, KIPP visit | 29 Comments

Intercepted cryptic secret message to reformers

Posted on February 19, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Though there was a recent article by Mike Petrilli about how people on Twitter generally only ‘follow’ people who they agree with, I try to follow a few ‘reformers’ to stay on top of what is going on.  So I … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America | 7 Comments

The $400 senior dues bargain at KIPP High School

Posted on February 19, 2013 by garyrubinstein

A few months ago I visited the New York City KIPP High School and wrote a post about it.  That post was called ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ by a lot of people on Twitter, which I’m happy about because it took … Continue reading →

Posted in Debunking, KIPP visit | 21 Comments

Et tu, Rube?

Posted on February 19, 2013 by garyrubinstein

On a post I wrote last week called ‘The Status Quo Miracle District,” I got a bunch of angry comments from people who seemed to feel betrayed by my ‘debunking’ of the media inflated claims of a ‘public’ school district. … Continue reading →

Posted in Research | 6 Comments

You might be a reformer if …

Posted on February 14, 2013 by garyrubinstein

It has been a while since I caught up on some TFA ‘Pass The Chalk’ blog entries.  I read two interesting ones, one just published, and one published a few months ago that I must have missed. In “Who are … Continue reading →

Posted in Teach For America | 26 Comments

The Status Quo Miracle District

Posted on February 13, 2013 by garyrubinstein

Over the past two years I’ve spent a lot of time debunking ‘miracle’ schools and ‘miracle’ districts.  The way it works is that some politician or journalist tells a story about how this school or district has come up with … Continue reading →

Posted in Research | 36 Comments