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Democrats for Education Reform hosted Camp Philos in Philadelphia during the day  on Monday   around the Democratic National Convention. Among the speakers were Congressman Bobby Scott, Senator Chris Coons, Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles from 2005-2013, and Ann O'Leary, Hillary Clinton's Senior Policy Adviser, who specializes in issues relating to families and education. It was a great event! 

Speaking of DFER, here's a good article,  Where Does 'Education Reform' Go in a Post-Obama World? , about the challenges we reformers face now – and will face even more under a new administration: Back in 2008, Democrats for Education Reform  had what amounted to its coming out party at the party's national convention in Denver . But a lot has changed in eight years . On Monday , an event put on here by Education Reform Now, an affiliated organization, felt like an opportunity for a little soul searching, as some big name speakers pondered a central question: Where exactly, does the education-redesign movement go in a post-Obama administration, post  Every Student Succeeds Act  world? "There's a lot of anxiety about the transition from this president to the next  administration," Shavar Jeffries, the national president of the organization, a non-profit think tank affiliated with DFER said as he kicked off the policy forum. But Jeffries isn't worried. H...

After the convention  on Monday night , I flew to Atlanta for the annual KIPP School Summit, which is always one of the highlights of my year – so inspiring! At the end of this email are lots of pictures I took (mostly at the closing gala last night – where I, of course, wore my favorite Trump NOPE t-shirt!). Here are two videos: a) a video I took at the opening of the gala, where Dave, Mike and Richard were rockin' with the KIPPsters ( https://youtu.be/31_0EnwUK3g ); and b) the annual KIPP video ( https://vimeo.com/176232235 ). And here's the KIPP website from the Summit with various other videos:  www.kipp.org/our-approach/kipp-school-summit

Following up on my last email, in which I included Diane Ravitch's op ed in the NYT critiquing the Common Core, below is an excellent response. Here's the summary: It was no surprise when, this weekend, education historian and vehement Common Core-opponent Diane Ravitch railed against the standards and assessments – again – this time in a  New York Times   op-ed . While she admits to numerous times she's been completely wrong in the past, we'd like to take this opportunity to point out  nine  additional times that she's completely wrong in this single piece: 1. and 2. Ravitch repeatedly refers to Common Core State Standards as national standards,  and  as a curriculum. 3. She claims the standards are "another excuse to avoid making serious efforts to reduce the main causes of low student achievement: poverty and racial segregation." 4. She claims "the people who wrote the Common Core standards sold them as a way to improve achievement and reduce the g...

I received this email from a friend this morning, who lives/votes in a swing state, Virginia. It made my day!   "I'm with her" :)   Just want to say thanks to you Whitney for sending all these emails on how you feel about Trump. At first I was irritated to read all these attacks on him, as I considered myself conservative/Republican and I volunteered for Trump earlier this year (then again, I sign up to get this email voluntarily), but after reading all your emails, and watching last week's convention and this week's, I have a change of heart.   I can't believe I was charmed by Trump. Now I don't think he has any chance to win (if he wins, I lose hope about the American people) since people should be able to see his true self (I did read Art of the Deal and was impressed with his business acumen and negotiation skills, but I learned this week from Kaine, Barack and Michele Obama, Elisabeth Warren and Joe Biden that Trump ruined many people's lives and ...

An AWESOME 3-minute rant by Seth Meyers, aimed at my daughter's friends:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/seth-meyers-bernie-or-bust_us_57984499e4b0d3568f852c28 HEY! Seth Meyers Has A Reality Check For The Bernie-Or-Bust Crowd "I don't know which class you ditched to go to those Bernie rallies, but I have a feeling it was history." 07/27/2016 02:52 am ET  |  Updated  2 hours ago  Seth Meyers unveiled a new segment  on Tuesday  called "HEY!" ― and it was aimed squarely at the  Bernie Sanders diehards who have been raising a ruckus  at the  Democratic National Convention  in Philadelphia. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvV2JY8kbgI ," the " Late Night " host said. "Bust won. We don't have time for this." He added: "We're on the cusp of electing a racist demagogue, and that never ends well. I don't know which class you ditched to go to those Bernie rallies, but I have a feeling it was history." See his f...

This makes my blood boil: my oldest daughter, who's halfway through college at a liberal-leaning school (Carleton), tells me that when she tells her classmates (most of whom love Bernie) that she supports Hillary, they wrinkle their nose. They're not supporting Trump, to be sure, she says; rather, they say that they're not to vote as a matter of principle (though she suspects most will end up voting for Hillary). (Another friend, who also has a college-age daughter, reports that he's hearing the same from her.)    Boy, do I want to grab these idiots by their lapels and give them a good shake! Are they really so obtuse that they can't see how Hillary is totally aligned with their views/worldview and Trump stands for the exact opposite?! And the young women especially: can't they see that women like Hillary fought brutal battles to give them the opportunities they have  today ?! Hopefully they will come to their senses by  Nov. 8th …

Any Democrat not enthused about Hillary needs to read this:   I DON'T SEE IT AS VOTING FOR CLINTON. I see it as voting for the EPA, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Voting Rights Act, Food Stamps, Minimum Wage, ACA, Roe v. Wade, Marriage Equality, Dep't of Ed, National and Community Services Act, environmental research at Dep't of Energy, USAID, Rail grants, Community Dev Fund, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, CPB, NEA, a liberal majority in SCOTUS for the next 30 years that will overturn Citizens United. IF TRUMP IS ELECTED, ALL THIS IS GONE. It's not about Clinton. It's about 80 years of progress we're in danger of losing because some are not looking at the big picture.  

Cory Booker gave an AMAZING speech  on Monday night  – and followed it up with a BRILLIANT rebuttal to Con Man Don's usual nasty attack: Trump fired back Twitter, writing enigmatically, "If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself." Shown the tweet during an interview on CNN's "New Day," Booker declined to respond in kind and instead offered a somewhat backhanded olive branch to the GOP nominee. "Let me tell you right now: I love Donald Trump," Booker said. "I don't want to answer his hate with hate. I'm going to answer it with love. I'm not going to answer his darkness with darkness. I love him. I know his kids, I know his family. They're good, the children especially, good people." You can read more about it and watch Cory here:  http://bcove.me/v5f9jqfx

This Australian comedian, Jim Jefferies,  nails  the danger of Con Man Don:  http://dangerousminds.net/comments/comedian_says_the_most_obvious_thing_about_trump_that_no_one_else_has_thoug ( 6:09 ). It's pure brilliance (and has 2.3 million views)!   Since I know most folks don't have the time to watch a 6-min video, I've transcribed it:   Now Donald Trump. Don't get me wrong: he's a lotta fun. And there's a little bit of me that thinks, "Fuck it! Let's do it! Let's do it and see how crazy shit can get!"   What happens is, he says really simple shit that means nothing and then fuckin' dummies… If you've ever said this sentence, "I like him because he's a straight talker," you're as dumb as shit! Just because someone says something simple that you understand, doesn't mean they're a straight talker. You can say a complex thing and be telling the truth. He says, "I'm going to make America great again,...

Is Michelle Obama the coolest, or what? Gosh, I'm going to miss her (and him of course)! "First Lady Michelle Obama Carpool Karaoke" on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/ln3wAdRAim4 -----------------

I was at the Democratic National Convention last night with my wife Susan and Charlie Ledley (fellow DFER board member)– it was great!

George Will with a spot-on op ed,  The injustice of California's teacher tenure : The mills of justice grind slowly, but life plunges on, leaving lives blighted when justice, by being delayed, is irremediably denied. Fortunately, California's Supreme Court might soon decide to hear — four years after litigation began — the 21st century's most portentous civil rights case, which concerns an ongoing denial of equal protection of the law. Every year, measurable injuries are inflicted on tens of thousands of already at-risk children by this state's teacher tenure system, which is so politically entrenched that only the courts can protect the discrete and insular minority it victimizes.  In 2012, nine Los Angeles students,  recognizing the futility of expecting the legislature to rectify a wrong it has perpetrated, asked California's judiciary to continue its record of vindicating the rights of vulnerable minorities by requiring the state's education system to confor...

Education Next with an in-depth look at the excellent progress being made in Newark under Chris Cerf, building on what Cami Anderson started: The contentious years ahead were the subject of a high-profile book by former  Washington Post  reporter Dale Russakoff,  The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools,  which was published just as Cerf became superintendent. The book focuses on the difficulties in implementing change in Newark, despite bipartisan leadership, financial support, and the attention of education watchers nationwide. A major theme, according to Cerf, is a "narrative of failure" in Newark schools. Changing that narrative is a critical challenge, he says, one helped by evidence of improvement in recent years. The suspension rate is down 37 percent. The graduation rate has risen to 70 percent from 61 percent in 2011. And about one in three Newark students attends "beating the odds" schools, those that outperform schools with similar demograp...

Charles Sahm with an excellent article on the Icahn Charter Schools in NYC, led by Jeff Litt, which should get much more attention than they do, as they're doing great work: In the 1980s, billionaire financier Carl Icahn and his wife, Gail, opened Icahn House, a large transitional-housing facility in the South Bronx, then and now the country's poorest congressional district. "Through our work at Icahn House, it became clear that you can't break cycles of poverty if kids don't get a high-quality education," Gail Icahn says. "As soon as Governor Pataki got the charter law through, we decided to open a school." Fliegel introduced Litt to the Icahns, and Litt helped write the charter application. In 2001, the Icahns asked him to be principal of the new school and gave him great freedom in designing it. Litt again used the Core Knowledge curriculum, and he hired the best teachers he knew. A modular-construction company built the school on land the Icahns ...

I normally don't send out something I disagree with (this NYT op ed by Diane Ravitch criticizing the Common Core), but I don't have time to respond to it, so I'm hoping someone will send me a good response that I can include in my next email. In the meantime, it's worth reading and understanding the critique: As the damage escalated, I renounced my support for high-stakes testing and charter schools . Nonetheless, I clung to the hope that we might agree on national standards and a national curriculum. Surely, I thought, they would promote equity since all children would study the same things and take the same tests. But now I realize that I was wrong about that, too. Six years after the release of our first national standards, the Common Core, and the new federal tests that accompanied them, it seems clear that the pursuit of a national curriculum is yet another excuse to avoid making serious efforts to reduce the main causes of low student achievement: poverty and raci...

Turning to the Presidential race, as you've probably gathered, I've taken a strong interest in this election (I do every four years, but never more so than this one), and have been reading/writing/emailing/blogging/Facebook-posting about it with increasing frequency and intensity (email me if you want to be added to my politics email list and/or Facebook friend me).   That's because I think the stakes have never been higher. In fairness, I thought this in the past, but I was wrong then: how insignificant it would have been if McCain or Romney had been elected, when compared to the completely unpredictable and potentially calamitous things that could result from Trump becoming the most powerful person on earth.   Tony Schwartz, who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal (and, as part of this, spent pretty much every waking moment with Con Man Don for 18 months), said in an  article : "I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possi...

This editorial in the Washington Post last weekend, entitled  Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy , is the single best (among hundreds) of articles I've read about why Trump must never become President. Excerpt: DONALD J. TRUMP, until now a Republican problem, this week became a challenge the nation must confront and overcome. The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America's problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump's politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together. His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation's two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew. Any one of these characteristics would be disqualifying; together, they make Mr. Trump ...

Sorry, here is the first link the the article on Hillary https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-voters-need-answers-about-the-clinton-emails/2016/02/07/ef5f02c0-cab9-11e5-88ff-e2d1b4289c2f_story.html?tid=a_inl Michael Arnovitz Jun 13 https://thepolicy.us/thinking-about-hillary-a-plea-for-reason-308fce6d187c#.xwxa27g34

 Here are excerpts from the even more in-depth follow-up article. Here he takes folks to talk for wild assertions: If you want to take a different position than I did I think you should do that. But simply stating that you are against Hillary because she's a "pathological liar" or "war criminal" is not an argument, and it's not a position. It's just an insult pretending to be discourse. And while you are entitled to your opinions, you are not entitled to respect for those opinions. There seems to be some confusion on that point, and there really shouldn't be. Also, while I have a natural curiosity toward other people's views, if your main communication tactic is calling people names while hammering the "caps lock" key like you're playing a game of whac-a-mole, you can probably count me out. I'm interested in people who take a position and then communicate it with logic and reason. In other words, people who actually try. And I...

I wish that I weren't so ambivalent about Hillary (for reasons I outlined in this Facebook post  on June 29 th : https://www.facebook.com/wrtilson/posts/10154226559868632 ). I'd really love to get more enthusiastic about her so I won't feel like I'll be holding my nose when I go into the voting booth in November – and I know many others feel similarly.   With that in mind, I'd like to share this essay (and a follow-up) that a completely random guy, Michael Arnovitz, posted on his Facebook page  on June 8 th , which then went viral.   It is the single best argument  for  Hillary that I've read.    Below are excerpts from the original article.   Here's his view on the sexism that's likely at work: But while conservative propaganda and lies are a constant in "Hillaryland", if we look at Hillary's career, and the negative attacks so often aimed at her, it seems clear that more than just political machinations are at play. My current conviction ...