Detractors of public education received a big blow last week when it was revealed that former Indiana schools superintendent Tony Bennett manipulated the state's school grading formula to ensure a charter school run by a major Republican donor received an "A" grade. 

Bennett, who was just recently Florida's education commissioner before he resigned last week, was pressured to step down after the Associated Press published the following email to his chief of staff:

This will be a HUGE problem for us….They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work.

After a long series of coordinated attacks on the collective bargaining rights of working families in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, union members and their allies in Michigan are being proactive. They have placed a referendum on the ballot, known as Proposal 2, which would make the right to collective bargaining part of the state's constitution and would ban "right to work" for less laws.

Laura Clawson from Working America is now at Daily Kos writing full-time about issues key to working people. Here’s her latest on the involvement of former District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee in limiting collective bargaining for Michigan teachers.

Education blogger At the Chalk Face has obtained an internal briefing document from Michelle Rhee’s Students First and makes clear just how extensively Students First collaborated with Michigan Republicans on four education bills targeting teachers, including one limiting collective bargaining. The 30-page PDF is available here.

Although union members are the most visible targets of the attacks on working people, this anti-worker crusade extends way beyond unions to an assault on the broader American middle class, says Laura Clawson.

More than 200 students, teachers and other activists—many from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—rallied today in Washington, D.C., against  Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) and Gov. Tom Corbett’s moves to privatize their states’ schools.