News & Comment

"So much for Democratic harmony," is the way Herold Meyerson chose to start his op-ed in The Washington Post analyzing the ramifications of the current Chicago teachers strike on the well being of the Democratic party. read more »

So much for Democratic Party harmony. Just a few days after a convention that displayed the party as one big happy family, a civil war has erupted in Chicago between the Democrats’ disparate wings. Rahm Emanuel, the volatile, far-from-union-friendly mayor who is a mainstay of the national Democratic Party, and the almost-as-volatile Chicago local of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), itself a mainstay of the national Democratic Party, are at loggerheads over the future of Chicago’s schools and teachers. The school strike that began Monday should be an alarm bell in the night for Democrats everywhere. At stake in the conflict is not only the future of education reform but also the role of unions within the party and, by extension, the nation. read more »

MORNING MESSAGE: When It Comes to the DoJ and Wall Street, Don't Call It "Justice" read more »

Chicago’s 29,000 public school teachers and support staff aren’t just on strike to defend their own wages and benefits. They’re also fighting for better schools for the communities they live in. Click here to learn about why Chicago’s teachers are on strike. Here’s five facts — from a well-researched early 2012 CTU report — that you need to know about the abominable state of the Chicago Public Schools system — facts that Mayor Rahm Emanuel would rather you didn’t know. read more »

[My guest writer today is Cynthia Liu, PhD. Cynthia launched member-supported K12NewsNetwork.com to amplify grassroots education news and provide a national platform for people to use sophisticated online organizing tools to better improve and strengthen public schools. It's "MoveOn" for school communities. read more »

Chicago’s public schoolteachers are on strike against the city government and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And while no one likes the budget crisis that forms the strike’s fiscal context, nor the fact that 350,000 students aren’t at school, much of Chicago is finding joy in the municipal impasse — which is why, anywhere within earshot of the schools where the Chicago Teachers Union’s 25,500 members are picketing in front of their workplaces, solidarity car horns are blasting away. Since Rahm Emanuel’s election in the spring of 2011, Chicago’s teachers have been asked to eat shit by a mayor obsessed with displaying to the universe his “toughness” — toughness with the working-class people that make the city tick; toughness with the protesters standing up to say “no”; but never, ever toughness with the vested interests, including anti-union charter school advocates, who poured $12 million into his coffers to elect him mayor. read more »

Corporate execs and billionaire ideologues are creating — at taxpayer expense — a network of schools where learning takes a back seat. And they've launched a political blitz to clear away any regulations that might stand in their way. read more »

Michelle Obama's speech last night got rave reviews. (If you didn't see it, you can watch it here.) It was a very well written and well-delivered speech, personal and yet political, subtly showing the differences between the Obama worldview and the Romney worldview. read more »

Many Americans pay a lot more than the cost of student loans in order to attain a degree. Over the past year, as the nation’s student debt rolls hit $1 billion, policy makers, parents, and students took a hard look at the costs and benefits of a college education. But, as new data from the Demos household survey reveals, student loans are just the beginning of the story. Alongside the rising cost of education and simultaneous declines in need-based financial aid, households turned to credit cards as a means to finance their investment in a better economic future. Paying for college with plastic often means higher interest payments, rising debt burdens, and for some students, the inability to complete their degree under the strain of tightening household budgets. read more »

Once again, student-loan season is upon us. As a new class of freshmen ships off for a hopeful first year of college or trade school, many are as busy figuring out financial arrangements as lining up classes This year, as these students prepare to sign away their futures, they would do well to consider a report released by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). On July 20, the agency designed by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren released “Private Student Loans,” a devastating expose of the $150 billion private student loan industry, one of the banking world’s Goliaths. The report is both an official account of private lenders’ underhanded “subprime-style” tactics as well as a sharp warning against taking out private loans that put students at risk of financial ruin. read more »