CURMUDGUCATION:
Camp Philos! Take Me Away!!
Camp Philos! Take Me Away!!
You may have seen the ad for this. Maybe you even received an invitation (but I bet you didn't). It's Camp Philos, "a philospoher's camp on education reform," the first ever, and it looks absolutely awesome!! I have got to go to this thing! It says right here that it's just like in 1858, when Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowes retreated to the mountains "for respite in kind
Van Roekel/NEA CCSS Update
It's been almost six whole weeks since Dennis Van Roekel stepped up to make the announcement that CCSS implementation has been botched, and to suggest some startling ideas for correcting course. It' a month and two days since he took to the US News debate club to issue a rewritten version of his statement about the botch that walked back most of the exciting parts.DVR called for all sorts of chang
YESTERDAY
Jeb Bush's Shiny Campaign
If you wanted to find all of the bullshit talking points about the CCSS Reformy Complex, you'd be hard pressed to do better than clicking on over to Learn More. Go Further.It takes a little clicking to learn that LMGF is brought to you by the Foundation for Excellence in Education (and I'm sure I'll be neither the first nor last person to point out how appropriate it is that these champions of pri
MAR 27
Students First presents a Tragedy in 4 Acts
Students First, an advocacy group that believes passionately in the power of educational advocacy to make some people more wealthy, recently released a video aimed at Pennsylvania and entitled "Protect Excellent Teachers in Pennsylvania." Clocking in at just under two minutes, it's a gripping and compelling tale. Seriously. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss common sense goodbye. Let'
Personalized Learning
One of the benefits promised repeatedly by our Data Overlords and Standards Bearers is the personalization of education.We will collect the data and crunch the numbers and analyze the results and cross check the strengths and weaknesses against a thousand points of light and lo and behold, the System will spit out a Pearson-produced educational program on the Pearson software loaded on the student
Poop Sandwich
If you wanted to trick someone into eating poop, you would not just hand them a bowl of poop unless you also had a gun to point at the person's head.No, it would be easier to trick them by hiding the poop inside something yummy like soup or a casserole. Or you could make a poop sandwich. Just hide the poop between two perfectly good slices of tasty bread (white, rye, pumpernickel-- for purposes of
MAR 26
How Much Does the Florida House Suck? This Much!
This morning I updated you on the progress of Ethan's Act, the bill in the Florida capitol that was proposing the incredibly radical notion that maybe children suffering through extraordinary difficulties should be easily released from their mandate to take the states Big Test. If you've forgotten the backstory, go read. I'll wait.The news this morning was that the language Ethan's Act had been at
Ethan's Act Update
Andrea Pratt Rediske is disappointed and frustrated, but as I'm "talking" to her on facebook this morning before school, she has finally received word about the current fate of the Florida bill that carries her son's name.You will recognize Andrea Rediske as the mother of Ethan Rediske, who made news as the victim of Florida's bizarrely Kafka-esque testing rules. Ethan was born with cere
MAR 25
Rhee Scores Perfect 0%
Michelle Rhee turned up on LinkedIn as an expert"influencer" (no, not influenza) to analyze "the state and future" of her industry.In general, I try not to give any space in my head to Ms. Rhee, but she remains such a perfect example of everything that's wrong with the Masters of Reforming Our nation's Schools, and this post is such a perfect example of how badly she gets every
Can Hillary Be Trusted?
The twitterverse erupted briefly yesterday when Hillary Clinton, appearing at the Globalization of Higher Education conference in Irving, Texas, dropped a few bricks of praise upon the head of co-host Jeb Bush. Specifically, she lauded him for his dedication to and passion for education and the reform thereof. Upon hearing those words, many Democratic fans of public education dropped their jaws up
MAR 24
Why CCSS Can't Be Decoupled
Don't think of them as standards. Think of them as tags.Think of them as the pedagogical equivalent of people's names on facebook, the tags you attach to each and every photo that you upload.We know from our friends at Knewton what the Grand Design is-- a system in which student progress is mapped down to the atomic level. Atomic level (a term that Knewton lervs deeply) means test by test, assignm
MAR 23
The Coming Teacher Shortage
Friday I sat down for coffee with the president of a local university (in my other incarnation as a local newspaper columnists, I get the occasional request to chat). Among other things, she confirmed what I have been hearing for a while-- enrollment in state school teacher programs is plummeting.Part of the problem is that, at least in my part of Pennsylvania, the college-age demographic sector i
News from Institute of Grittology
Here at the Institute of Grittology, we're committed to helping monetize the work of our research partners, The Research Institute for the Study of Obvious Conclusions ("Working hard to recycle conventional wisdom as proprietary programing").Our speakers bureau has determined that statements such as "treating children with support and kindness helps them do better in life" do n
MAR 22
Cloudy with a Chance of Data
There are so many reasons to be opposed to the business of mining and crunching data. We like to rail about how the data miners are oppressive and Big Brothery and overreaching. But there's another point worth making about our Data Overlords:Data miners are not very good at their job.My first wife and I divorced about twenty years ago. We have both since remarried and moved multiple times. And yet
Who Puts the Scary in Pearson? Meet Knewton.
Behind the data generating-and-collecting behemoth that is Pearson is a company called Knewton. And here's a video from the November 2012 Education Datapallooza (a name that I did NOT make up, but was officially given the event by the Dept of Education, because they are so hip. I believe they also listen to the rap music). In just under ten minutes, Jose Ferreira, Knewton CEO, delivers the clear
MAR 21
In Praise of Non-Standardization
It is hard for me to argue with fans of national standards, because we hold fundamentally different values.I'm opposed to CCSS, but unlike many other CCSS opponents, I'm opposed to any national standards at all. But it's hard to have that conversation because it comes down to this not-very-helpful exchange:Standards fan: But if we had national standards, everyone would be on the same page. The sys
You Don't Know
Testy stuff experts could discuss all of the following in scholarly type terms, and God bless them for that. But let me try to explain in more ordinary English why standardized tests must fail, have failed, will always fail. There's one simple truth that the masters of test-driven accountability must wrestle with, and yet fail to even acknowledge:It is not possible to know what is in another perso