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The year a divided Democratic Party sidelined all talk about American schools
By Chad Aldeman Congratulations, Democrats, we made it through the nominating process without hearing much about what our nominee, Hillary Clinton, will do on education. Aside from a passing mention of tuition — and debt-free college for the middle class — Clinton’s historic acceptance speech last night continued the two-week convention trend of little to...
By Guest contributor | July 29, 2016
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Flashback: The first time Hillary Clinton was tested as a public school supporter
The year was 1993. President Bill Clinton had just beat Republican incumbent George H. Bush and the first family was facing an early political test: Where would they send Chelsea Clinton, their 12-year-old daughter and only child, to school? On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton had portrayed himself as an ardent supporter of public education. He...
By Naomi Nix | July 28, 2016
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Make no mistake: Immigration is an education issue
By Hailly T.N. Korman The DNC kicked off last night with two parallel stories of immigration that are meaningful, especially for those closely watching education issues. Karla Ortiz — a 10-year-old American citizen — spoke along with her mother, Francisca Ortiz, who is undocumented. Another speaker, Astrid Silva — identified on the schedule simply as “DREAMer”...
By Guest contributor | July 27, 2016
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Why a rocky first night at the DNC means they’ll play it safe — and avoid education arguments — for the rest of the week
By Kaitlin Pennington Yesterday, my Bellwether Education Partners colleague Andy Rotherham wrote on this blog that “as long as the Democrats don’t burn the place down, it’s going to be hard for them to have a worse convention than the GOP just did.” Well, it came close. The Democratic National Convention delegates didn’t seem to get...
By Guest contributor | July 26, 2016
Investigation: Nearly 1,000 Native Children Died in Federal Boarding Schools
Podcast: What a Mentorship Mindset Can Do for Student Motivation
Black and Hispanic Voters Say Democrats Aren’t Focused Enough on K-12 Education
Teen Activist Rhea Maniar on the Power of Abortion to Turn Out Young Voters
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Democrats flock to Philadelphia: Here’s where 14 DNC elites stand on education
As the country’s electoral sweepstakes moves a few hundred miles east from Cleveland to Philadelphia, where Democrats are set to nominate Hillary Clinton, discussions of policy look to become more substantive. Unlike Trump, Clinton has a substantial education record – during the campaign, she released detailed proposals on home visits and the school-to-prison pipeline. She recently addressed...
By Carolyn Phenicie | July 25, 2016
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Exclusive: Amendment adds imaginary testing standard to Democratic education platform
Democrats added a misleading reference to standardized tests to the party platform over the weekend, requiring they meet a reliability standard that doesn’t actually exist. “[W]e believe that standardized tests must meet American Statistical Association standards for reliability and validity,” the amendment reads, saying this would “strike a better balance on testing, so that it...
By Matt Barnum | July 15, 2016
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Commentary: Democrats rewrite education platform behind closed doors, abandon core party values
By Peter Cunningham The Democratic Party has always stood for one thing: we fight for the little guy. In the field of education, the little guy is the student. He can’t vote. He doesn’t have much say about his school. He mostly has to do what he’s told. And he is trusting us to do...
By Guest contributor | July 14, 2016
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Morning Read: Infighting In Sacto & Charlotte
Failure of teacher evaluation bill clouds CA’s NCLB waiver SI&A Cabinet Report: Withdrawal of the teacher evaluation bill in the final days of the legislative session last week likely removes an easy path for California schools to relief from federal sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act, state officials said last week. [Also: The California Teachers...
By Hillel Aron | September 4, 2012