Don’t be stupid: election reflections
I'm feeling intensely bummed. Last Tuesday was election night in Philadelphia and the left got routed. Helen Gym, the our mayoral candidate, placed third...
The tide turns for Gym
After writing a piece about Paul Vallas in advance of the big mayor's race in Chicago with my great friend Jason Wozniak, editors at In These Times asked for...
The BABs problem
I came across something recently that both answered a question I've had for a couple years, and also scared me. It has to do with the debt ceiling hullabaloo...
Give 'em Helen
Happy May Day! There's an exciting and confusing race for mayor happening in Philadelphia right now. I live there and so I'm obviously deep in the weeds on...
Drinking sea water
I'm co-authoring a research paper analyzing underinvestment in Philadelphia's school buildings between 2005-2021 with Camika Royal. We're presenting it in a...
Pension tension
You've probably seen what's happening in France. Centrist president Emmanuel Macron forced through a change to French retirement age from 62 to 64, relying...
Green dream or whatever
An addendum to a post from two weeks ago about applying for IRA money: here's the EPA's website for the Inflation Reduction Act planning and implementation...
On Paul Vallas: "He sold our schools to the highest bidder"
My great friend Jason Wozniak and I co-authored this essay on Paul Vallas for In These Times, which was published this Saturday. Vote Johnson! *** Shakeda...
How school districts can take advantage of IRA programs
Last Thursday, the Philadelphia School Board had a public meeting. I submitted the following testimony into the public record urging the board to encourage...
SVB and education
A reporter recently interviewed me about something I tweeted on teacher pensions amidst the recent Silicon Valley Bank banking crisis, and it got me thinking...
Welcome to Carmel High
A video went viral recently that caught my eye. Students at Carmel High School in Indiana were giving a tour of their building as part of an after-school...
Organizing a millionaire's tax
I went to an amazing workshop on radical pedagogy at Yale a few weekends ago. It featured a mixture of discussion, report backs, and analysis of the present...
Why is my neighborhood school a charter?
A lot of my friends in Philly have kids. The kids are toddlers now, but soon they'll be going to school. So we're all thinking about where to send them to...
The science of reading: a socialist take
Over the last year, I kept hearing rumbles about something called "the science of reading debate" and stuff about the "reading wars." I didn't know what it...
Notes on possible next steps for a student housing struggle
In a previous post, I wrote about some of the recent financial and political history behind the student housing crisis happening at West Chester University...
Philly's asbestos crisis
Maybe you've heard the hot goss: the School District of Philadelphia is suing Philadelphia City Council. At stake is who controls school facilities safety...
A profound sense of unease
This newsletter focuses a lot on school facilities finance. It's an under-examined aspect of school finance and education policy generally, but it's an area...
Is the Inflation Reduction Act non-reformist?
I hit a wall last year. After getting excited about the Inflation Reduction Act and teasing out the particulars of what it would mean for school districts to...
The debt and the wolf
I've been putting together a literature review on school facilities finance and came across something curious. In a great working paper on state credit...
Chatbot GPT on socialist school finance
You've probably heard of Chatbot GPT by now. It's an advanced form of artificial intelligence that responds to queries you give it based on vast banks of...