How to Make Better Math and Science Teachers

By Mary Ellen Flannery There was one kid who never showed up to algebra class at his Washington State middle school. Then one day, he sidled in and his classmates showed him how to use the classroom’s new hand-held technology. “He’s been coming to class every since,” his teacher said. It’s hard to resist a [...]

DREAM Act Supporters Make Their Case to the US Senate

By Mary Ellen Flannery “I am an American in my heart,” Michigan student Ola Kaso told Senators on Tuesday in the first-ever hearing on the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a much-needed pathway to citizenship for some undocumented students who attend college or serve in the military. The hearing, available on webcast and [...]

Adjunct Faculty in Illinois Win Right to Unionize

By Mary Ellen Flannery It’s been more than two years since adjunct professor Curtis Keyes Jr. and his colleagues at East-West University in Chicago decided they didn’t want to live on peanut-butter sandwiches anymore. They didn’t want to say farewell to two-thirds of their faculty friends at the end of each semester. They wanted a [...]

Community Colleges Critical For Job Creation, Says Obama

By Mary Ellen Flannery When Winston Bender graduates next year from Northern Virginia Community College with an associate’s degree in automotive technology, he knows he’ll have a job waiting. Standing next to him is proof — Kul “Jimmy” Heo, a recent graduate who had no problems getting a paycheck. “I am the proof!” he says, [...]

For-Profit Colleges Face Tougher Regulations

By Mary Ellen Flannery Those for-profit colleges that take in millions of federal tax dollars but turn out graduates with mountains of debt and worthless degrees will have to do better for their students. Long awaited regulations released this week by the Department of Education make it clear that those “career colleges” risk losing their [...]

Academic Freedom Sold Off Cheap

By Mary Ellen Flannery What’s the price of academic freedom? At Florida State University, it looks like $1.5 million – or the amount donated by a right-wing billionaire who, in return, gets a final say in faculty hiring. The contract between the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation – and yes, that is the same Koch [...]

GOP Budget Slashes Education and Health Services

By Mary Ellen Flannery On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled his much-anticipated 2012 budget proposal. Ryan calls his program The Path to Prosperity, which it probably is – if you happen to be rich and are looking to get richer. If, on the other hand, you are a middle-class American who [...]

House of Representatives Slashes Education for Low-Income Kids

By Mary Ellen Flannery Almost 200,000 of this nation’s neediest children would lose their slots in Head Start programs, if U.S. Senators opt to approve a draconian federal budget passed by House Republicans last month. On Wednesday, the Senate agreed to approve a much smaller menu of spending reductions to prevent an imminent government shutdown, [...]

Wisconsin Mobilizes Against Gov. Walker’s Anti-Educator Bill

Blue Ribbon Panel Urges Overhaul of Teacher Education Programs

By Tim Walker A national panel of education experts gathered at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Tuesday to call for teacher preparation to be “turned upside down” by a roster of innovative changes to teacher education programs. The sweeping recommendations are part of a new report by a Blue Ribbon Panel convened [...]

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