AFP PHOTO/Saul LOEB Remember the education president? That would be George H.W. Bush, who promised that he would focus on improving schools so that the United States would be number one in educating its children for the new millennium. His…
Author: Robert I. Grundfest
I am a teacher, writer, voice-over artist and rationally opinionated observer of American and international society. While my job is to entertain and engage, my purpose is always to start a conversation.
Mitch McConnell, moderate. I thought I’d never see that characterization, but after last week’s embarrassing, incompetent, dangerous gambit the House Republicans played, he’s looking like the only GOP adult in the room. John Boehner seems to have lost his caucus…
It’s getting a bit too easy finding contradictions and hypocritical statements in what Governor Chris Christie is saying these days. That must mean he’s running for president. On his signature issue, pension and benefit reform, the governor went back on…
I get very tired very quickly when I hear that we need the best and brightest to become classroom teachers in the United States. For one, it’s incredibly insulting because it assumes that the teachers we have now in public…
Another week, and more snow is expected in the northeast. There’s more over the PARCC testing storm as well, but this time, there is a ray of sane sunshine. Here in New Jersey, State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman…
Educators, are you getting excited? No, not about the next snowstorm, which looks like a whopper, but about the PARCC tests? You’d better be, because they are on the way and the impact will be measurable and unpredictable. For those…
My apologies if the image of Chris Christie in a swimsuit finds you eating a meal while reading this. It’s one of the hardships of the blogging trade, I know. As mid-January hurries into late-January (a month of Mondays if…
Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri As if the Cowboy kerfuffle wasn’t enough of a distraction for the governor, along comes another story where ‘Boys owner Jerry Jones condescends to Christie’s fandom by saying that having Christie in the owner’s box is payback…
It’s one thing to sit in the owners box and discuss politics or bidness with a somewhat straight face and an unemotional posture. Then there’s what Governor Chris Christie did on Sunday evening with Dallas Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones. Christie…
It took about 35 years, but the Republican Party is just where it wants to be. They have a Congressional majority and are flush with the optimism of a political movement that they believe has broad popular support. They…
Yes, I know it’s the holiday break and students and teachers across the country are off, but really, this is just the calm before the storm. There are only two more months until the new PARCC tests are administered. Then…
As I said before, it really doesn’t feel like the holidays, and with the events of the past week I would guess that others are wondering where the spirit went. Or when it’s really going to arrive. The Sony hacking…