The Opposite of Excellence
It's not really news, and it has certainly been commented on a million times, but I don't think we can be reminded too many times. We've heard it, but it's a slippery well-greased pig of a fact, a detail so unbelievably stupid that it literally numbs the mind and slips away like a half-remembered dream. Unconsciously, our brain's filter says, "Well, that can't be right," and we go back t
Local vs. Global
One of the advantages that the reformsters have in the ongoing debate is that their POV is one-size-fits-all large scale national by its very nature, while those of us in the resistance are fighting largely local battles. And each one of those is different. It's a single ocean on one side and a million Dutch boys and girls on the other, each with a finger in a different hole in a different part of
The Non-fiction vs. Fiction Issue
Since Common Core first shambled onto the education stage, teachers (particularly language teachers) have sounded the alarm about the infamous 70/30 split between fiction and non-fiction. "We'll have to drop studying Shakespeare to make room for reading instructions for IKEA shelving assembly," goes the complaint.As a high school English teacher, I'm not very concerned about this require
8-16-14 Curmudgucation Week
CURMUDGUCATION:Curmudgucation WeekTeachers in ThunderdomeOne of the dreams of reformsters is a school system in which teacher employment is shaped by neither tenure nor seniority. When the time comes for cutting staff, administrators will just grab their Big Spreadsheet of Teacher Effectiveness Data, look down at the bottom of list, point at the name next to the lowest rating number and declare, &
