THE BECOMING RADICAL
Radical Scholarship
the becoming radical
A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness
by
Anatomy of Charter School Advocacy
When I wrote Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail Education Reform in 2011, the acceleration of charter school advocacy hadn’t quite gathered the momentum that we are experiencing at the end of 2013. If charter school advocacy has proven anything, however, it is that my basic premise has come to fruition: Once again, the caution of evidence - advocacy is the enemy of transparency and truth. Like me
Spellings Doubles-Down on “Incredibly Complicated” High-Stakes Testing
Spellings Doubles-Down on “Incredibly Complicated” High-Stakes Testing.
Truthout: Why Charter Schools Are Foolish Investments for States Facing Economic Challenges
Truthout: Why Charter Schools Are Foolish Investments for States Facing Economic Challenges
DEC 26
Education Reform: Our Field, Our Voices Simply Do Not Matter
“I am an invisible man,” announces the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, adding: I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me….When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, of figments of their imaginations—indeed, everything and anything except me….That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of
DEC 25
The Socialist Objective: “I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity”
Under a pen-name for a newspaper in 1943, George Orwell wrote about Christmas, veering into a declaration of the Socialist objective, predating by many decades Kurt Vonnegut’s career of making similar and powerful claims about the need for human kindness: The Socialist objective is not a society where everything comes right in the end, because kind old gentlemen give away turkeys. What are we aimi
DEC 24
Top Posts of 2013, and Thank You
This year, 2013, is when I took the plunge and began blogging at my own site—despite trepidation about “who was I..” and “who would bother….” Because of the kindness of my fellow educators, bloggers, and Twitter-friends, I am very pleased with how many read and share my work. It is something I value as someone driven to write. I am now tiptoeing into another commitment that started this month, but
DEC 23
Faces of Free Speech
The controversy over comments by Phil Robertson in GQ has become a public (although jumbled) debate about free speech. Matt Bruenig has done a valuable job highlighting how that public discourse has ignored a much more complicated admission, by comparing how the Right has responded to Robertson as that contrasts with the Right’s reaction to the 2003 Dixie Chicks controversy: It is not mysterious w
DEC 22
Teachers of Conscience and the Common Core Scylla and Charybdis
In our popular discourse, we are prone to say we are caught between a rock and a hard place, a veiled allusion to Homer’s Scylla and Charybdis. For K-12 public school teachers over the past thirty years, our Scylla and Charybdis have been federal, state, district, and school mandates on one side and our own professional expertise and autonomy on the other as we navigate the rough waters of serving
I Don’t Need Standards To Teach, I Need Students
Just days ago, I completed my twenty-eighth year as a teacher [1]—eighteen as a high school teacher of English followed by ten years as a professor of education. And I am excited about the coming semesters because, as I have felt every year of my teaching life, I know I failed in some ways this past academic year and I am confident I will be better in my next opportunities to teach. As a teacher,
DEC 21
Supporting Common Core Is Supporting Entire Reform Machine
Supporting Common Core is supporting either an increase or diversion of education tax dollars for funding CC-aligned textbooks, CC-aligned materials, CC-based high-stakes tests, CC-related teacher inservice and workshops, and expanded analysis of CC-based test data. Supporting Common Core is supporting a continuation (at least) or an expansion (likely) of high-stakes testing for children, despite
Anatomy of Charter School Advocacy
Anatomy of Charter School Advocacy
Truthout: Why Charter Schools Are Foolish Investments for States Facing Economic Challenges
Truthout: Why Charter Schools Are Foolish Investments for States Facing Economic Challenges
DEC 23
DEC 22
Teachers of Conscience and the Common Core Scylla and Charybdis
Teachers of Conscience and the Common Core Scylla and Charybdis
I Don't Need Standards To Teach, I Need Students
I Don't Need Standards To Teach, I Need Students