Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION
A Better PARCC/SBA Test Prep Program
6by Peter Greene / 42min
You may recall the old SAT vocabulary lists. Dozens of test prep lists that promised to get you ready for the SAT because their creators had pored through and broken down dozens upon dozens of old SAT tests, and here they were-- the 50 or 100 or 500 words that most commonly appeared on the test. Of course you remember these lists, because they totally worked. While the SAT allegedly tested reasoni
Pennsylvania Recap (Call Your Legislator)
by Peter Greene / 34min
I don't usually do this, but it seems like a good moment to pause and gather up some of the more recent news from Pennsylvania, because it's becoming difficult to keep track of all the lousy ideas in Harrisburg right now. If you are in Pennsylvania, here's some food for thought for the next time you contact your elected representative (and that time should come early and often). School Funding Eme
Did FCC Just Damage School Internet
1by Peter Greene / 1h
In the wonky alphabet soup depths of policy, this thing happened in April-- the FCC decided to uncap BDS pricing , because free market competition. Wires competing for space on free market pole Business Data Services refers to the kind of bulk internet access sold by providers like Verizon and ATT to business and other institutional buyers. Like small businesses or hospitals or libraries or school
ICYMI: Wrapping Up April Edition (4/30)
5by Peter Greene / 3h
Where did that month go? Here are some reads from last week. As always, I ask you to please amplify what speaks to you. "I wish I could write like that person," is what I often hear, and I feel you, but anybody and everybody can tweet, facebook, email and otherwise amplify those voices-- and if you don't push a writer's work out into the world, it doesn't matter if she wrote it. Deescalating Schoo
YESTERDAY
Lift Your Head
41by Peter Greene / 15h
In my capacity as Head Stage Manager Guy at my school, I have spent my day on duty for a concert sponsored by a local church. It makes for a long day, but the crowd is always pleasant and the featured band this year is one my kids used to listen to growing up ( Audio Adrenaline , for you people both of faith and also of a certain age, though like most decades-old bands, they are now essentially a
Choice and Guarantees
20by Peter Greene / 1d
You are visiting friends, and at suppertime, they give you two options. "We can go to Restaurant A," they say, "and there will be only one choice on the menu, but I can guarantee you that it will be awesome. Or we can go to Restaurant B where there will be plenty of choices, but it's entirely possible they will all be pretty lousy." Which restaurant would you select? Some reformy choice advocates
APR 28
Is DeVos Misunderstood?
44by Peter Greene / 2d
On a certain level, I feel just a smidgen of sympathy of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. There has been a steady drumbeat against her, and she has drawn more negative coverage-- heck, more coverage of any sort-- that any education secretary in memory. Nobody made jokes about Arne Duncan on late night television. And some of it is not entirely fair. When I heard the line about the bears and gun
APR 27
NPE Privatization Tool Kit
17by Peter Greene / 3d
The Network for Public Education has created a useful toolkit for spreading the basic information about the school privatization network. The kit is a series of thirteen pdf files, suitable for creating a two-sided one sheet explainer for some of the central questions of the privatization movement. The sheets are loaded with footnoted facts and not simply rhetorical gnashing of teeth. The thirteen
APR 26
Arne Duncan's Newe$t Gig
23by Peter Greene / 3d
Seems safe to say that Arne Duncan is far busier in his post-government life than he ever was a Secretary of Education. His latest gig is working with "mission-aligned private capital"at something called the Rise Fund . "I can't believe it either. People just keep throwing money at me." The Rise Fund is "a global impact fund led by private equity firm TPG in collaboration with a group of renowned
NC: The Company School
17by Peter Greene / 3d
North Carolina (Motto: "We won't let Florida beat us to the bottom of the barrel") is considering some cool new charter school bills. Some are the usual charter-flavored pork, like the bill that will raise the unregulated cap on charter enrollment growth from 20% to 30%. That is, any charter, including ones that demonstrably suck, can grow enrollment by 30% without having to ask anyone's permissio
APR 25
Betsy DeVos Is Not Entirely Wrong about This
12by Peter Greene / 5d
Hey, it had to happen. Even a blind shooter occasionally hits something. And on Fox News America's Newsroom, she said this: ...there really isn’t any Common Core anymore Breitbart reported on this as a means of whipping up some conservative high dudgeon about the Core, and correctly note that her observation that the Core is no longer out there in classrooms stands "in sharp contrast" to Trump's a
APR 24
NEA Takes on Charters
17by Peter Greene / 5d
The National Education Association has not always been swift to respond well to the currents of reformsterdom; lots of us still have a bad taste in our mouths from NEA's embrace of Common Core. And when NEA does take a position, it often does so with the lukewarm tap dance of a politician, and not an advocate for education (e.g. its resounding, "Perhaps Arne Duncan might try a bit harder to do a s
APR 23
HYH: Edvertising
18by Peter Greene / 7d
If I've said it once, I've said it a gazillion times: The free market does not foster superior quality; the free market fosters superior marketing. Annnnd here it comes. The marketing. The latest episode of Have You Heard with Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider takes a look at educational marketing (it also posits the heretofore unknown product "Extruda," which... just makes me uncomfortable).
ICYMI: Day After Earth Edition (4/23)
4by Peter Greene / 7d
Your list of worthwhile reads from the week. Enjoy, and pass them on. Looking for the Living Among the Dead A beautiful Easter meditation from Jose Luis Vilson The Privateer Legislators A family friend passed this along from Florida. An articulate argument for not privatizing education in Florida, or anywhere else, from Roger Williams. Chester Finn Jr. Calls for an End to Teacher Tenure I assume t
APR 22
Checker Still Doesn't Understand Tenure
23by Peter Greene / 8d
Chester "Checker" Finn, Grand Poobah Emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, is the reformster most likely to unleash his higher dudgeon over Kids These Days and Those Darn Teachers, and he has done so again on the Fordham