"Ben Chavis, the most politically incorrect person on the planet, is also, not coincidentally, one of the people most correct about inner-city education. Read this book by a man who gets results as a practitioner of the 'no excuses' approach to schooling."
- George F. Will, The Washington Post columnist
"…[T]here is much to be learned from this account. It is possible to restore public education to its mission of educating the nation's citizens. There is a message of hope and possibility in 'Crazy Like a Fox' that we should embrace."
- Mitchell Kapor, The San Francisco Chronicle
"Chavis [is] undeniably one of the country's finest educators…Thrust this book into the hands of all the parents you know and implore them to read it…Chavis is passionate, articulate, and entertaining. He's also right."
- Mark Hemingway, National Review
"American Indian [is] a rarity in American education, defying the axiom that poor black and Latino children will lag behind others in school."
- Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times
"To get the kind of results Chavis does in Oakland is a work of stripped-down genius. Ben's book reads like Ben talks: forthright, funny, irreverent, and wise. For anyone who cares about American education, for anyone who cares about America, Crazy Like a Fox is an essential read."
- Jack Cashill, author What's the Matter with California?
Yesterday in Oakland during the one-day teacher strike sponsored by the teachers’ union (Oakland Education Association), a union member allegedly vandalized property at American Indian Public Charter School (the school where I used to teach for Dr. Ben Chavis and which formed the basis for Crazy Like a Fox).
AIPCS is a non-unionized charter school that [...]
I read “The Patron Saint (and Scourge) of Lost Schools” in New York Magazine and found myself irritated with journalist Jeff Coplon because of his bias against charter schools, which he referred to as “quasi-public schools.” Charter schools aren’t “quasi” public; they are public.
Coplon writes about charter schools: “Can privately run schools justly take public [...]
Finally, some progress has been made on this topic, which is one of the most egregious examples of what unions can do to a school system. This type of union abuse makes me so disgusted with our public school system! What a wasteful and shameful embarrassment for America.
From The New York Times:
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg [...]
From The New York Times:
Gov. Charlie Crist has been jawboned and buttonholed as he has traveled around the state in recent days, and his office was deluged with 120,000 messages. Passions have not run so high in Florida, the governor said, since the controversy over ending the life of Terri Schiavo in 2005.
This time, the [...]
Whitney Tilson, an influential and passionate education reformer, has recently released a documentary called A Right Denied: The Critical Need for Genuine School Reform. I haven’t seen it; has anyone reading this viewed it? What did you think of it? I love the cover image (shown below and followed by the copy from the back [...]
Jaime Escalante, the inspiration behind the movie Stand and Deliver, passed away this week at the age of 79 after a battle with cancer.
Jay Mathews provides a touching tribute to Jaime Escalante’s education legacy in the following article:
Jaime Escalante didn’t just stand and deliver. He changed U.S. schools forever.
By Jay Mathews
Sunday, April 4, 2010; B02 [...]