by Kate Harveston The great tragedy of any society that chooses capitalism over cooperation is that many of its citizens will grow up totally, or mostly, unconcerned with the world beyond their own heads. Untold generations fetishized competition and rivalry — now we’re reaping ...read more
Last year on SNL, the insanely versatile Kate McKinnon played Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in the first of Melissa McCarthy's sketches as former press secretary Sean Spicer. When asked a question about proficiency in students, she freezes up and says: "I don't know ...read more
The Banter Long Read: We knew that 4th grade would be difficult for Jordan. We've known for years that while Kindergarten through 3rd would be a challenge for our autistic child, 4th grade is where the transition to a more traditional academic setting occurred and that it would ...read more
The Millennials cannot practice what they are not taught, and over the last twenty years, middle school and high school civics classes have fallen at disturbing rates... To continue reading this article, please go here. You'll get unrestricted access to all our member's content, ...read more
by Kate Harveston If there is a list of things the millennial generation feels allegedly entitled to, affordable education must be near the top. Conservative naysayers cite the fact that current wages compare favorably to those of 15 years ago. Technically that’s true, but a ...read more
While pretty much every Republican currently in office is awful, there are seven that stand out from the rest of the crowd. They exemplify everything that's wrong with the modern right wing and deserve a round of applause for their extraordinary effort to destroy everything good ...read more
Full disclosure: I can be a vitriolic writer. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Thanks to a potent cocktail of bearing witness to insane levels of stupidity coupled with my own laziness, I'm often a profane, sarcastic asshole making futile attempts to hammer home the central ...read more
Once upon a time, we loved our teachers. They were pillars of the community and respected by all. These days, we underpay, undervalue and undermine them at every available opportunity. We tell them to raise our children for us and then bitch and moan when we don't like the ...read more
It is plain to many observers that Donald Trump has placed a number of people in cabinet positions who are openly hostile to the departments they now head. That's what Trump's Rasputin, Steve Bannon, was talking about when he referred to the "deconstruction of the administrative ...read more
Out of all of Trump's cabinet, one department head sets the gold standard for inexperience and incompetence -- Betsy DeVos. The billionaire head of the Education Department has absolutely no experience with public schools on any level, but is now the architect of federal ...read more
This article was originally published on Banter M, our digital magazine for members. Ok, the headline for this article is somewhat misleading. I don't support Betsy Devos's philosophy on eduction, or her ludicrous (and virtually non-existent) views on public schooling in ...read more
Donald Trump's Cabinet picks are an interesting lot. They range from people openly hostile to the agencies they are being asked to run (Andrew Puzder and Scott Pruitt), to those who have no background or expertise in the job they are being asked to do (Ben Carson ). But out of ...read more
In Donald Trump's America, administration members can apparently ignore the separation between church and state as long as they are loyal to Donald Trump. Not only is his current choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, an obscenely rich, religious nutjob who has donated ...read more
In episode 9 of The Daily Banter's Meaning of Life Podcast, Ben and Vazken discuss different forms of authority in society and how to recognize them. From school to religion and the workplace, there are many hidden types of authority structures that exist in our culture, and ...read more
In what has to be the most surreal display of hysterical outrage in years, American students around the nation have been vigorously protesting perceived "micro-aggressions" on campus. Our own Chez Pazienza covered much of this madness last week in response to truly nauseating ...read more
(Image: New York Public Library) by Amien Essif If you were airdropped, blindfolded, into a strange town and given nothing but a bus ticket, to where would you ride that bus? You might be surprised to learn that there’s only one good answer, and that’s the public library. The ...read more
By Robert Covington Jr. These days, life as a teacher in large cities such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York have become far more complicated, questioned, misunderstood and in some political circles, marginally respected. Many of our teachers have been given unwelcomed ...read more
I was on the Thom Hartmann show last night getting into it with Nathan Leamer, a policy analyst at the R Street Institute and George Landrith, President of 'Frontiers of Freedom'. We discussed a variety of topics from L.A's new $15 minimum wage to Bernie Sander's plan for a free ...read more
I was on the Thom Hartmann show last night and got into it with conservatives Kris Ullman and Shelby Emmett and took part in what can mostly be described as a shouting match over marijuana laws in Washington state and the US education system (show starts around the 4.20 mark): ...read more
Image via in.gov by Marian Wang A couple of years ago, auditors looked at the books of a charter school in Buffalo, New York, and were taken aback by what they found. Like all charter schools, Buffalo United Charter School is funded with taxpayer dollars. The school is also a ...read more
During a video segment called "The Morning Meeting," Beck and morning zoo sidekick Pat Gray discussed, of all things, a box of dildos. Specifically, a box of dildos in a high school end-of-term student awards ceremony. Why, Beck wondered, is a box of dildos allowed in school, ...read more
Like many Americans, I get my news from the Daily Show. Ok, not really but I didn't know Governor Rick Perry was on a tour to steal businesses from other states like California, Illinois and New York until I saw the Back in Black segment the other night. If you missed it, you ...read more
Hamilton Nolan on the chronic underfunding and racial inequality of community colleges in America: There are 85 students per staff member at predominantly white colleges, according to the study, and 294 students per staff member at predominantly nonwhite colleges. Another study ...read more
Many of us are enjoying our post-election schadenfreude, observing as the Republican Party increasingly marginalizes itself, demographically and politically, and scrambles to cut a narrowing path to the White House while also attempting to shove the tea party demon back into its ...read more
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From TPM: Tennessee has emerged this week as a center of the “the answer is more guns in schools” sentiment following the Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting. A member of the Republican-controlled legislature plans during its upcoming ...read more
It's difficult to know what to say because there are so many things to say. I want to write about gun control; I want to shame the politicians who allowed the assault weapons ban to expire and who subsequently have refused to stand up to the NRA; I want to write about all of ...read more
By Marian Wang: The financial aid award letters that colleges send to prospective students can be confusing: Many mix grants, scholarships and loans all under the heading of "Award," "Financial Assistance," or "Offered Financial Aid." Some schools also suggest loans in amounts ...read more
A great piece by Alex Magnin on the history of technological innovation and how the latest economic slump may pave the way for a more sustainable future: The great technologies of our era – computing and the internet – drove twin bubbles and crashes. The late 1990’s ...read more
Rising fees and lack of funding appears to be driving student away from UK universities and looking across the Atlantic for higher education. From the Guardian: Data obtained from seven prestigious US institutions reveals that a major drive to recruit UK undergraduates is ...read more
A fascinating report in the Atlantic on the Unversity of Southern California's experimentation with an online virtual classroom: Since USC and Kaztman teamed up to create the country's first online course for a master's in teaching, called MAT@USC, the school that graduated ...read more
It's simply staggering, though, that with all the medical advancements of the last several centuries -- with all we've learned about the human body and how to fix it when something goes wrong -- there are still people out there who feel more comfortable sucking on a piece of ...read more
Congrats to Maryland's students. From the College Board: The top 10 states with the greatest proportion of their seniors from the class of 2010 having at least one successful AP experience were: Maryland (26.4 percent), New York (24.6 percent), Virginia (23.7 percent), ...read more
Once again, the Republican/conservative noise machine puts itself firmly and squarely on the wrong side of history: On the very first day of the school year, 12-year-old Mileena Rodriguez was reminded by President Barack Obama himself that hard work can take you places. Mileena ...read more
Link The president’s much ballyhooed address has been the subject of right-wing hand wringing since it was announced weeks ago. Several schools refused to air it. In my home, the most stinging criticism of the speech came from my younger child, who lasted 10 minutes before ...read more
Yes, lets hire a creationist to run the state education board. Lord. Then again, this is a decision made by Gov. Rick Perry - previously of Texas secession advocacy and even before that, Lieutenant Governor to... George W. Bush. So, it makes perfect sense. Onward, backwards ...read more
Victory. For the first time, Maryland ranks top in the nation for the share of high school graduates who passed at least one Advanced Placement test. The College Board reported yesterday that 23.4 percent of Maryland students in the Class of 2008 earned passing scores on one or ...read more
Science teachers really shouldn't trot out nonsense to try and attack evolution in class. God! ...read more
Before I read Malcolm Gladwell's new book Outliers I would have been upset about this change to Montgomery County, MD's "gifted" program - but Gladwell makes a pretty compelling case in his book that the practice of sorting kids into gifted programs so early tends to have the ...read more
Can we declare our independence from Florida? Just in interest of propping up the national IQ. Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears. But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ...read more
For a while, at least, some of the kids in Florida have a shot at a non-stupid science education. ...read more
I posted this in links yesterday, but I'm putting it here because I thought it was funny and worth more notice. I really hate these intelligent design (creationism) people and the way they continue to try and pervert science and education. Expelled and Ben Stein are even worse ...read more
The legislature down there in America's appendage passed a bill that calls for the theory of evolution (caution: may contain science-like material) to be downgraded to just contradictory noise in order to allow creationism based "intelligent design" into the classroom. This ...read more
Proven, for the 7 millionth time. Stoking the fire, a study published in the April edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received abstinence-only ...read more
I had an... interesting discussion with my Mom a few days ago on the relative merits of me leaving college (this happened 11 years ago and it's going to go on my permanent record) and my position on the issue aside, here's what I believe to be one of the major benefits of the ...read more
If you ignore the loud voices on the far right, you'll be ensuring success for our kids, and the country by putting IB and AP in their schools. ...read more
M.I.T.'s dean of admissions resigns and admits she lied about her college degrees. Maybe it's because I don't have one, but it's always been intriguing to me the almost magical power someone exerts by saying they have a college degree. In the last 12 or so years since I've been ...read more
Check out this video of teachers flipping out in the classroom. Now, the pinhead in the interview, Mark Eiglarsh, makes the nutty case that teachers yelling at bad behaving kids is "emotional abuse". Why is it people who apparently have not been a classroom in the last 20 years ...read more
