CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Valentine's Edition (2/10)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Valentine's Edition (2/10)

ICYMI: Valentine's Edition

A handful of worthwhile reads this week. Remember to share!

Defining High Quality Curriculum

Nancy Flanagan wants to know why curriculum is supposed to be so hard for actual teachers.

Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education To The Brink

Jeff Bryant looks at how badly charter schools squeeze public school finances. (Spoiler alert: pretty badly)

Active Shooter Drills

A reminder, if you need one, of just how badly this business stinks, and how damaging to a school's atmosphere these little death plays are becoming.

A Wake-Up Call To AI Companies

An interview with Anand Giridharadas, a guy you should definitely know about.

What Part of No To Vouchers Do Lawmakers Not Understand   

Arizona lawmakers are determined to just sort of ignore the results of recent elections, decisions, uprising-- you name it.

The Myth of De Facto Segregation    

From the Kappan. Segregation didn't just kind of happen, and the soft bigotry of low expectations is not the major problem.

Third Grade Flunk Laws and Unintended Consequences   

Yes, Nancy Flanagan is on here twice. I can't help it if she keeps writing indispensable stuff.

The Trouble With Test-Obsessed Principals

Steven Singer takes a look at how testing messes with the front office and what that means for everyone else in the building.

Portfolio Governance Creates Unstable Charter Sector    

Firing your way to excellence involves closing lots of schools. That's not really helpful in any district.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Valentine's Edition (2/10)

Field Guide To Strike Objectors

100+by Peter Greene / 22h

In my four decades of teaching, I went through a strike twice--once as a first year teacher, and once as the president of the local union. Writing about education, I have followed dozens more. No matter what kind of public support a strike is getting, there are always some familiar tunes you can expect to hear played in opposition to a teacher walkout. Here's your guide to all the classics. Don't

FEB 08

IA: Choice Is Taxation Without Representation

20by Peter Greene / 1d

An Iowa state senator has caught on to one of the problematic side effects of many choice programs-- disenfranchised taxpayers. Or, as somebody put it a while ago, taxation without representation. Iowa has long allowed open enrollment; an Iowa family can enroll their student in any public school district, whether they live there or not. Currently the full per-pupil expenditure follows the student-

FEB 07

DC: Charter Leaders Make The Big Bucks

93by Peter Greene / 3d

It's a phenomenon noted in many urban education-scapes. The leaders (CEO, Education Visionary, Grand High Muckity Muck, whatever) of a charter operation makes far more money than a) the local public school superintendent responsible for far more students and b) the teachers who work within the charter. But a recent Washington City Paper article by Rachel Cohen lays out some stark examples. The art

Count Them As They Go

100+by Peter Greene / 3d

I'm asked from time to time (mostly, I think, because some people are curious but reluctant to ask) what it's like to be in my particular spot in life. Retired from teaching, sixty-one years old, raising two babies about thirty years after I raised two other babies-- as my wife and I have said at various times over the last decade, we are kind of off the map here. So my honest answer is that I'm f

FEB 06

Portfolio School Management For Dummies

23by Peter Greene / 4d

One of the issues that was hanging over the Los Angeles teacher strike is the idea of portfolio management; the UTLA asserts that Superintendent Austin Beutner already has a plan prepared for converting the LAUSD to a multi-portfolio model. In Denver, the model has already been rolled out, to less than stellar result . It's a challenging issue to discuss because so few people understand exactly h

FEB 05

Hammering the Littles: Are The Kids Really All Right?

100+by Peter Greene / 4d

The headline says " Kindergarten classes are getting more academic. New research says the kids are all right. " The news is that a big shiny new study shows that the increasingly academic approach to kindergarten is okee dokee. The quick take is that the study followed 20,000 kindergarten students and found that they both achieved academically and their social and emotional development was just fi

FEB 04

Reclaiming Choice

54by Peter Greene / 5d

So we just froze our way through School Choice Week, the annual PR blitz in favor of privatizing public education, and I find myself troubled and annoyed by the word "choice." See, I favor choice. In all my years at our tiny small town/rural high school, we'v e graduated students who went on to become doctors, artists, teachers, welders, construction workers, lawyers, telephone linemen, and jobs y

FEB 03

ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3)

by Peter Greene / 7d

Was it the cold? Did we all just have more time to wander the internet? I don't know, but it's a huge list this week. Remember to share-- that's how the word gets out. LA Strike: Charters Are An Existential Threat To Public Education The LA strike was extraordinary in that it addressed so much more than wages and benefits, but also addressed policy as well. Here's a good look at where the LA chart

FEB 01

Measuring Success: A Study in Contrasts

37by Peter Greene / 9d

Two items tossed my feed this week that underline contrasting ideas about what constitutes success in education. First, let's go to the Jackson-Madison County school system of Tennessee. At JMCSS folks are pretty excited because they've made such strides with the addition of a unified curriculum. They know this worked because they have all sorts of growth data, much of it exceeding expectations. N

JAN 31

How American Should American Schools Be?

by Peter Greene / 9d

Part of the impetus behind modern education reform is the idea that more of the education system should be operated by businesses. Many merits and drawbacks of that approach continue to be debated, but one aspect is rarely discussed. Modern business is multinational, so we need to ask--how much control of our educational system do we want to send outside of U.S. borders? Charter schools have been

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