Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION
The Gates Plan for College
6by Peter Greene / 1h
Some days I feel kind of Rip Van Winklesque, as if I went to sleep and when I woke up the world had changed. Apparently while I was sleeping, the electorate rose up and elected Bill Gates the Grand Uber Head of Education. "Please," a bunch of you non-sleeping people said. "Redesign our entire education system. Redefine what it means to be an educated person, and redefine how a perso
The Word Charters Leave Out
43by Peter Greene / 4h
The sales pitch, in various versions, pops up every time charter cheerleaders are pushing charters as the Big Solution in education. "We know how to educate poor minority students." The implication, of course, is that public schools don't know how to get the job done. The use of civil rights rhetoric further pushes the idea that charters can rescue non-wealthy, non-white students from a
YESTERDAY
CA: Court Rejects Test-based Teacher Eval
62by Peter Greene / 1d
While astro-turf group Students Matter, a front for the reformster activism of Very Rich Man David Welch, is most famous for concocting and then losing the Vergara case , they have been trying to skin the reformy cat with other knife-like lawsuits as well. With Doe v. Antioch, Welch's group set out to compel thirteen California districts to include Big Standardized Test results in teacher evaluati
SEP 22
Wells Fargo and Making Your Numbers
82by Peter Greene / 2d
As you've probably heard by now, Wells Fargo got caught building its financial strength by a technique known variously as lying, fraud, or just making shit up. Low level employees created a bunch of fake accounts linked to actual humans who had no idea their financial matters were becoming messier by the minute. At the end of the day, 5,300 low-level employees were fired, and nobody who was respon
SEP 21
Grade Inflation?
18by Peter Greene / 3d
Mike Petrilli (Fordham) is concerned about grade inflation. His concern, as expressed in a recent piece at Education Next, is hung on the hook of a recent-ish survey by Learning Heroes , a new group sponsored by the same old folks (Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Helmsley) that has partnered with some other outfits funded by the same people, like Great Schools (funded by Gates, Bloombe
SEP 20
USED, Pay for Success and Stupid Pre-K Plans
61by Peter Greene / 4d
The United States Department of (Privatizing) education is touting another boneheaded idea , this time aimed at preschool and using yet one more unproven approach-- pay for success. What is that, exactly? Here's the explanation from the USED FAQ page : Pay for success (PFS) is an innovative contracting and financing model that aims to test and advance promising and proven interventions while payin
SEP 19
16 Policies for the Next President
8by Peter Greene / 5d
Bellwether Education Partners, a reliably reformy right-tilted thinky tank, recently issued a compendium of policy ideas for the next President. " 16 for 2016 " comes with sixteen writers and sixteen ideas, though it's not entirely clear which candidates it's aimed at-- presumably not Hillary, whose contacts among the right-leaning world of corporate education privatizing are probably be
SEP 18
The Lesson of Detroit
66by Peter Greene / 6d
Last week a group of children in Detroit, Michigan sued the governor , the state board of education, the superintendent of public instruction, the director of technology, management and budget, and the state school reform/redesign officer. The lawsuit runs over 100 pages, but the table of contents provides a pretty clear outline of the argument: 1) Literacy is a fundamental right 2) The state of M
ICYMI: Catching up on your reading (9/18)
4by Peter Greene / 6d
Money and race, money and race. Some weeks it feels as if that's all this is really all about. Remember to link and share and pass on the readings that speak to you. Everyone can amplify the voices they believe should be heard. Will equity without adequacy be enough to help Connecticut's neediest children Wendy Lecker looks at what is being done-- and not done-- to meet Connecticut's obligations t
SEP 17
New Report on the Teacher "Shortage"
79by Peter Greene / 6d
Back in the summer of 2015, we were all making noises about the coming teacher shortage crisis. (I even did a state-by-state rundown .) And it wasn't really new in 2015; lots of folks had called it sooner than that, looking at data