Quotables

Small schools contend for space in N.Y.

New York was where the modern small-schools movement began. But Bloomberg/Klein’s version has turned a great idea into an ownership society quagmire with new small schools and charters run by management companies, competing with traditional neighborhood schools for space, autonomy, and shrinking resources.

From Sunday’s NYT :

Getting along is often complicated by a power imbalance between the “host” school and the newcomers. The hosts are often large schools in the process of being shut down after being branded failures, with teachers and students who resent being eclipsed by the favored new small schools.

Stuff Happens...

New L.A. Supt. Ramon Cortines, who replaces Admiral David Brewer, is interviewed in the L.A. Times:

You served as interim superintendent in Los Angeles for six months in 2000. During that time, you developed a decentralization plan that never really went into effect. What happened?

Where I was naive, and where the board was naive, is that when you decentralize -- and the board has approved it and all the unions have bought into it -- you think it will happen. And it didn't happen.

The Real Arne

Peter Campbell is a parent, educator, and activist, who served in a volunteer role for four years as the Missouri State Coordinator for FairTest before moving to Portland. He ponders, on the PPS Equity blog, “Who’s the Real Arne Duncan?”