Assistant Editor, Education Week
Assistant editor for Education Week
PROFILE
Michele McNeil
Guest
FROM Michele McNeil
Which Way, L.A.?
Federal Money, Teachers' Unions and Education Reform Former President Bush produced “ No Child Left Behind .” Now President Obama has an education reform plan of his own. He calls it “ Race to the Top ."
To the Point
Federal Money, Teachers' Unions and Education Reform President Obama is dangling $4.3 billion in stimulus money to promote charter schools, merit pay and standardized tests for evaluating teachers. He says states with laws against such evaluations won't get any money, which rules out New York and California. Even in other states, Education Secretary Arne Duncan could be up against opposition from teachers' unions, a major force in the Democratic Party. Will the prospect of all that money turn the unions around? What's the future of what the President calls "Race to the Top?"
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To the Point
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.
To the Point
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.
To the Point
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.
To the Point
Human Rights in the era of Donald Trump President Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, said today the US might pull out of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Serious violators of human rights are members of the Council itself–and a US resignation could make things worse. Later on today’s show, now that he’s into his second term, comedian turned US Senator Al Franken is telling jokes again.