As we approach the end of 2015, we decided to take a look back at our year’s most popular blog posts and op-eds. Here is your top 10 reading list for the holiday break. Happy holidays to all and we’ll be back in 2016!
ERNed Media Year in Review: Top 10 Blog Posts and Op-Eds
10. Blog: If You Smell Something, Say Something by Marianne Lombardo
“Jon Stewart’s parting advice was ‘The best defense against bullshit is vigilance. So, if you smell something, say something.’ Let’s call education inequality, never mind inequity, bullshit and think about what we’re doing and own that we have the power to do it differently.”
9. Blog: What’s Killing Higher Ed? by Mary Nguyen Barry
“It’s time for colleges to stop drinking the vodka and instead be upfront with students, families, and the public about the tangible results they’re producing in exchange for astronomically high prices. Otherwise, a massive, massive hangover is on the horizon.”
8. Op-Ed in Real Clear Education: Education Focus Needed to Help America’s Working Families by Charles Barone
“In America’s longstanding fight to expand job opportunities and improve social equality, the largest socioeconomic influencer is often grossly forgotten: education. And the country’s most powerful labor group can be the one to change that, if it resolves the conflicting interests between union members whose children attend public schools and teachers unions that often work against the interests of those same children.”
7. Blog: A Modest Proposal for Harvard University by Michael Dannenberg
“From a fundraising standpoint, it would be fairer and more efficient for elite colleges to auction off acceptance letters on E-bay than to retain the legacy preference or embrace Lewis’s Moneyball preferences.”
6. Blog: John Oliver – This Moment in History Requires a Bigger Vision than that of Privileged Anti-Testers by Marianne Lombardo
“John’s humor – full of hyperbole and hysteria with kids puking and crying, motivational songs and mascots – makes a pretty effective case against the evil corporate profiteers who are purportedly driving the push for better data on student achievement. But here’s what wasn’t said: Most testing has no high stakes for children within the school system. The real high stakes come with the lack of economic opportunity that result from educational inequality.”
5. Op-Ed in The Hill: Is Our Children Learning? by Mary Nguyen Barry
“Hillary Clinton joins her Democratic presidential contenders in laying out a plan to create a new cap on student loan debt. But neither she nor her challengers have asked colleges the key – albeit grammatically incorrect – question former President George W. Bush presented to K-12 schools years ago: ‘Is our children learning?’ For all the rhetoric and angst about increasing college prices, the dirty little secret of higher education is that a college degree doesn’t actually represent any particular set of knowledge or skills.”
4. Blog: Annotated Quick Look: Clinton v. Sanders on Key Education Issues by Charles Barone and Marianne Lombardo
“With the first Democratic Presidential debate just a week away, today we take a quick look at the two main Democratic Presidential candidates’ positions on K-12 education issues. This snapshot is based on information (or lack thereof) from both Secretary Clinton’s and Senator Sanders’ campaign websites as well as their voting records and public statements.”
3. Op-Ed in U.S. News & World Report: Preventing the Next Corinthian by Michael Dannenberg
“In a breathtaking acknowledgement the federal government bears some responsibility for college quality, the Obama administration announced this week that it will forgive the federal student loan debt of up to 350,000 Corinthian College students at a taxpayer cost of as much as $3.5 billion.”
2. Blog: The 50th Anniversary of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act by Charles Barone
“We need to find a way to face facts, acknowledge where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to be but haven’t quite gotten to yet. That, as our friends at Sesame Street call it, is the “Power of Yet.” Over to you, Janelle Monáe, for further explanation.”
1. INFOGRAPHIC: Everything You Need to Know about the Every Student Succeeds Act by Marianne Lombardo
“In this bill, legislators worked to find a balance between a continued federal commitment to protecting educationally disadvantaged students and putting the responsibility for an equal quality of education for all students in the hands of local and state officials. Democrats for Education Reform and Education Reform Now will continue to work with our partners and the American people to stay vigilant and assure that the states and the federal government continue to protect and promote the educational civil rights of all students.”
