Let's Choose Schools in Texas!

WSJ weekend interview of John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, is just as good as his controversial OpEd.

U.S. Math Scores Hit a Wall.  The name of the wall is the NEA (and other teachers unions).

Here are a few choice quotes:

“Educators were uncertain how to explain the flat results, and some said they don’t point to a trend.”

“I would be cautious not to make too much of it,’ said Kichoon Yang, executive director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a professional group.”

“…most fourth-graders … probably could subtract a two-digit number from a three-digit number but not identify parallel and perpendicular lines in a geometry problem.”

“most [eighth-graders] … likely would be able to read information from a graph but probably wouldn’t be able to set up and solve an algebraic equation.”

Read the Washington Times, Fox News and Wall Street Journal articles.  Support the school choice leaders who are protesting the termination of the DC Voucher Program.  Use the link in the page list on the right to find your representatives, both state and federal, and email them.  Take action supporting the protesters!

According to the Galveston County “The Daily News”, Odyssey Academy, a charter school in Galveston, has doubled the square footage of its school building by leasing an HEB grocery store that was flooded during Hurricane Ike.

A new documentary film “The Cartel” focuses on public school corruption in New Jersey and free-market solutions to the problem.  Bob Bowdon, a former anchorman for Bloomberg TV, produced the film.

Register at the film’s website to request a screening of the film in your town.  Read more about the film.

He says the Texas public school system is getting better in every way.

I found some priceless tidbits in the WSJ article, Detroit School Woes Deepen.

…[T]he state sent an emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, to straighten out the city’s ailing school system.  A probe launched by Mr. Bobb uncovered paychecks going to 257 “ghost” employees…

…Keith R. Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers… said there has been a “tendency to over-dramatize the level of corruption and the financial impact.”

Mr. Bobb… faced scrutiny himself this week when it came to light that he has awarded a no-bid contract worth nearly $1 million to a firm he used to work for… based in Philadelphia.  A spokesman for Mr. Bobb didn’t return several calls…

Plagued by poor test scores and occasionally violence – including multiple shootings near the locations of the district’s… summer-school program this year…

…[T]he district only graduates around one in four students who enroll in ninth grade…

Okay, Dallas ISD, I challenge you to beat this level of corruption.

What???

In a move that experts are calling nearly unprecedented, the Hillsborough County schools and teachers’ union have joined forces with a nonprofit Florida voucher group to help train private school teachers.

Inconceivable!!!