There is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people; when the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions.

American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?

In DC, policymakers think that if we can only have high enough standards, tough enough tests, and hold people accountable, we can close the achievement gap. And it hasn't happened. Yet the new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is based on the same test-based and market-driven framework and ideology, except it lets the states do it.

Accountability makes no sense when it undermines the larger goals of education.

We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them

We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit's first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.

Privatizing our public schools makes as much sense as privatizing the fire department or or the police department