In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom: Diane Ravitch with Jesse Hagopian

I recently went to Santa Fe, New Mexico to join best selling author Diane Ravitch in dialogue about the struggle for public education for the Lannan Foundation’s “In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom” forum. Below are the videos of my introduction to Diane, her speech focusing on the struggle against high-stakes testing, and our dialogue about …

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Black to School: The Rising Struggle to Make Black Education Matter

A world where Black lives matter and Black education is empowering will not come easily. It won't be funded by benevolent philanthropists. It won't be promoted by corporate lobbyists or legislated by the politicians they own. It will only happen with an uprising beyond even the scale and militancy of the last century's civil rights and Black Power movements. The contradictions of unhinged police murder of Black people in the "land of the free," coupled with corporate education reformers' racist schooling policies enacted in the name of "closing the achievement gap," are already producing large-scale, renewed social unrest. The question of how powerful this movement grows is up to us.

Arne Duncan: Testocracy Tsar. Educational Alchemist. Corporate lackey.

2016 has begun with important news: We have endured the last days of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan roaming the halls of government, looking for teachers and students to intimidate.  Arne, "the nation's bully," no longer runs the schoolyard.  Educators and families around the country will remember him by many monikers, none of them sympathetic. …

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Jesse Hagopian and Pedro Noguera Take on the Testocracy in Nationally Televised Debate: “Is public education in the U.S. broken beyond repair?”

Last Thursday I flew to New York City to take on Peter Cunningham, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education (under Secretary Arne Duncan, during President Obama's first term), in a debate hosted by Al Jazeera America’s program The Third Rail.  We debated the question, "Is public education in the U.S. broken beyond repair?" I …

Continue reading Jesse Hagopian and Pedro Noguera Take on the Testocracy in Nationally Televised Debate: “Is public education in the U.S. broken beyond repair?”

Laura Flanders Show Video: The privatization of public schools & the biggest uprising against high-stakes testing in U.S. history

I recently was a guest on the Laura Flanders Show to discuss the factors contributing to the mass opt out movement that has developed around the nation, now the largest uprising in U.S. history against high-stakes, standardized testing (see the below video). I have been traveling around the country on my book tour for More …

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