History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Public good, public cuts
- 06-21-2011
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The Economist
IN 1783 Noah Webster, a schoolteacher, published the first edition of his American spelling book. It would become a standard text in classrooms around the country, selling 60m copies over the course of the next century. Webster’s view was that the new country deserved its own approach to English, more accessible than the version it had inherited. For Webster and his followers, literacy was a democratic goal as much as a pedagogical one. That vision of public education is a compelling one, although America has often fallen short in its pursuit of the ideal. This makes it troubling that many cities and states, struggling to make up budget shortfalls, have put schools on the chopping block. (more...)
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