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Sunday, January 20, 2019

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Too Much Snow Edition (1/20)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Too Much Snow Edition (1/20)

ICYMI: Too Much Snow Edition (1/20)


While you're waiting to dig out (or feeling clever because you live somewhere where you don't have to), here are some pieces from the week for your reading. Remember to share. Only you can amplify writer voices.

These Students Walked Onto Westminster Campus And Into History

Another chapter from the history of integration in the US.

Five Years After Common Core A Mysterious Spike In Failure Rate Among NY High Schools

Huh. What could it be? The Hechinger Report lays out the phenomenon.

League Of Women Voters Calls For Charter Changes 

The usually-quiet League has some feelings about the problems with charter schools-- and they're getting some flack for them.

Summit Learning-- Where's The Research

Summit Learning would rather not let Havard take a look any their actual results-- but they would like to claim that such research has happened.

Cory Booker and Charters

While LA teachers were striking and raising the issue of charter schools, Cory Booker was at a charter school for a rally. Steve Singer takes a look at Booker's privatizing history.

Kids in Disadvantaged Schools Don't Need Tests To Tell Them They're Being Cheated 


Boy, have I missed Jersey Jazzman, but he's back at the blogging biz, strong as ever (only now we have to call him Dr. Jazzman).

Writing As Filling In The Blanks

You may be unaware that the creator of the Mr. Fitz comic strip also blogs, and has some important things to say about the state of test-driven faux writing instruction.



CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Too Much Snow Edition (1/20)





Why TFA Doesn't Get More Edu-respect

by Peter Greene / 20h
The title of the article is "I Switched Jobs 4 Times--Each With A $20,000 Bump. " It is part of the series "My 6-Figure Paycheck." This article is a quick interview with a Head of Talent Acquisition in San Francisco who currently makes $117,000 for a salary. She went to UC Berkeley for poli sci and then picked up a masters in project management from Northeastern, and her interview includes this pa
US Teens At Their Worst

by Peter Greene / 21h
This is one of the more upsetting things I've seen in a while. This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protestor at the Indigenous Peoples March. pic.twitter.com/jIb5K68vIs — Talia (@2020fight) January 19, 2019 From other angles, it only gets worse It’s even worse when you see the full mob effect. pic.twitter.com/Oe7Zn5srOB — Lulu Says (@lulu_says2) January 19, 2019 And here's a desc

JAN 18

DeVos Offers Advice From Within The Bubble

by Peter Greene / 1d
Betsy Devos is rich. She was born rich, married rich, and barring any French Revolution style upheaval, she will die rich. This does not automatically make her evil, but it does make her susceptible to life in a bubble-- particularly since she never created nor ran any of the businesses that made her wealthy. And it's important to remember all this when she starts waxing rhapsodic about the lesson

JAN 17

If You Care About Early Childhood Education

by Peter Greene / 2d
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I have concerns about the current direction of education for the littles. These are not strictly academic concerns-- between. children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, there are seven members of my family in the under-five age bracket. So I am happy to see this announcement in my in-box from Defending the Early Years: DEY is excited to announce
Oh, Arne.

by Peter Greene / 2d
Arne Duncan is always talking and it's never good. Let's take a look at two recent batches of word salad thrown up by the former secretary of education and current ed reform gun-for-hire. Earlier this month the Duncanator was the keynote speaker at Morgan Park High School' s career day in Chicago. The appearance would have been unexceptional had Duncan not spelled out in perhaps the starkest terms

JAN 16

FL: The Unsurprising Teacher "Shortage"

by Peter Greene / 3d
The Florida Department of Education has released a report on teacher shortages in the state , for the 2019-2019 school year, and the news is not great. The news is not just that there's a shortage (t hat's old new s), but that Florida deals with the shortages by filling classrooms with teachers uncertified for the subject. The news is also in where the shortages are being felt. It's not unusual to

JAN 15

Jeanne Allen on LAUSD: Fire Them All

by Peter Greene / 5d
The Center for Education Reform is a charter advocacy group whose most visible feature is Jeanne Allen, CEO and sometimes President of a board that includes pioneering privatize Chris Whittle. Allen loves charters and hates teachers unions. As you might guess, she has some thoughts about the LA teacher strike. After I wrote about the strike at Forbes.com, the Pinkston Group , a PR fit, shared some

JAN 14

SAT: New Frontiers In Pointlessness

by Peter Greene / 6d
David Coleman, he who single-handedly built the architecture of Common Core ELA in the image of his own (untrained) biases about how language should be taught, is taking a step back from some of his College Board duties. That news has been accompanied by further evidence that the SAT is increasingly pointless. Like most of the CC architects, isn't stick around to make sure his baby was properly in

JAN 13

ICYMI: Jazz In Church Edition (1/13)

by Peter Greene / 6d
Today was m day to visit my brother's church to play some jazz versions of old hymns. Fun times, but it ace for a full family day. Nevertheless, I have some reading for you from the week. Remember-- if you think it's a good one, share it and amplify the voice. Charter Lobby Still Spending Money in Connecticut Wendy Lecker lays out the ways in which the usual charter lobbyists are still plying thei

JAN 12

Four Reasons Charters Are A Bad Fit For Rural Communities

by Peter Greene / 7d
For just a moment, I'm going to set aside the larger problems of charters and privatization nationally. Charter advocates and education reformers have recently turned their attention to rural communities. Last summer, Mike Petrilli (Fordham Institute) unleashed one of his wide-release op-eds to point out the "problem" of "charter deserts" --those markets where charter schools have made few inroad

JAN 11

Why The Reading Wars Will Never End

by Peter Greene / 8d
I made the mistake of tossing a comment into the middle of a twitter thread on Monday. Not a nice quiet subject like vaccinations or abortion or Trump's wall, but reading. As soon as it became apparent that thread would blow up and swallow my feed, I could have asked to be cut loose or just muted the participants, but I was curious. How much longer would this go on? The answer is that after five d

JAN 10

GA: Cyber Schools Failing Here, Too

by Peter Greene / 9d
In what could be news only to someone who has not been paying any attention to cyberschooling in the US, a report from Georgia's Department of Audits and Accounts found that the state's cyber schools "underperformed ." Mind you, I'll argue that the state's College and Career Ready Performance Index is a lousy way to measure the performance of schools. But those are the rules that reformsters want

JAN 09

Bill Gates Is Still Pushing Common Core

by Peter Greene / 10d
Sigh. You've undoubtedly heard the news over the past couple of days-- the Gates Foundation is going to throw $10 million at teachers to help promote "high-quality" curriculum. There are several problems with this, and none of them are new. First, despite the headlines, this money is not actually being thrown directly at teachers. “We want to identify the content-specific professional development
Id: Ibe Hp Vp Bs

by Peter Greene / 10d
Idaho Business for Education (IBE) is "a group of nearly 200 business leaders from across the state who are committed to transforming Idaho’s education system." IBE works with the legislature and key Idaho stakeholders to help set our students up for success in school, work and life, and build the workforce that will lead to a vibrant economy for years to come. Our 2019 initiatives include the Sc

JAN 08

PA: How Charters Damage a Public School System

by Peter Greene / 11d
Erie has come a long way since the days that visitors would travel to the beaches just to be appalled by the dead fish on shore, the days when Western Pennsylvanians called it "The Mistake on the Lake." The waterfront is now pristine and beautiful, the city now boasting great theaters, hotels and recreation. But public education is still struggling. Just two and a half years ago, the previous sup

JAN 07

Why You Can't Fire Your Way To Excellence

by Peter Greene / 13d
For some reformsters and accountability hawks, the dream remains the same-- find those Bad Teachers, fire them, and replace them with Awesome Teachers. Crack the accountability whip and fire our way to excellence. We have discussed some of the obvious flaws with this approach. How do you even define a Bad Teacher, and is it a permanent condition or a day-to-day variable? How do you find your Bad T

JAN 06



ICYMI: Still Waiting for Winter Edition (1/6)

by Peter Greene / 14d
Still no snow in my neck of the woods, but still plenty of writing about education to be read. Remember, sharing is caring. Keep That Same Energy Jose Luis Vilson has my favorite kick off the new year piece. Check it out. Excuse Me While I Teach Your Child A greatest hits fun and games from McSweeney's 
CURMUDGUCATION - https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/
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