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Sunday, July 21, 2019

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION






Eight Weeks Of Summer: Getting It Done

This post is week 6 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators . I've been doing this challenge because why not. I answer the prompts as my pre-tirement self. Here's this week's question: How are you planning to implement change next school year? This often depended on the change. For lots of changes, I just did it. Changing how I approached vocabulary? Just did it. Changing the r

JUL 14

ICYMI: House Painting Edition (7/14)

Yes, we're getting the house painted. If that's not fun, I don't know what is. But in the meantime, here's some reading for you. How Did We Miss This? The story of the Indiana cyberschool collecting money for ghost students. Palm Beach Real Estate What can you do when you're a charter school entrepreneur? Sell one mansion you never actually lived in and then buy another one. Common Core Tests Are

JUL 13

The New Koch Ed Reform Rebranding Astroturducken

The billionaire Charles Koch has launched another adventure in astroturf, this time aimed at rebranding ed reform while still pushing reformy ideas, playing the reform greatest hits and-- well, it's a little unclear what else is going on. But every layer is more special than the last. This has been coming for a while. Back in January Koch announced that they were going to increase their level of m

JUL 12

Are These Lessons To Learn From Cyberschools?

At this stage of the game, there's no reason to keep imagining that cyberschools are a viable option for education on any sort of scale. There's a small group of students with specialized needs that they can serve well, but mostly they've failed big time. But they are also excellent money-makers, and so we periodically find folks trying to rehabilitate the cyberschool image. Here comes another suc

JUL 11

Eight Weeks of Summer: Big Hairy Say What Now?

This post is week 5 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators . I've been doing the Hot Lunch Tray eight week challenge. Unlike other challenges, it does not require me to eat responsibly or beat myself up with ice water or plastic gerbils. I'm answering the questions as my old pre-retirement self. You can see what other folks are writing by checking out the #8WeeksofSummer hasht

JUL 10

Does The Most Interesting Teacher Pay Proposal Belong To A Billionaire Friend Of Trump?

Stephen Schwarzman might have an idea. Schwarzman, cofounder of the Blackstone Group , has been named a Bloomberg Most Influential person of the year more than once, and in 2007 he was one of Time's 100 Most Influential people of the year. He is a long-time friend and advisor of Donald Trump, including help set up Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum . He has given away a great deal of money and pu
Whom Do We Trust

One of the unending underlying challenges in education is that parents and taxpayers have to trust somebody. Back In The Day, the default was to trust teachers and administrators. That would be back when the default was to trust authority figures as a whole-- but that pendulum has swung far in the other direction (on behalf of all the Boomers, let me just say, "You're welcome"). Heck, even within

JUL 07



ICYMI: Really Really Summer Now Edition (7/6)

Hot and steamy here, which still makes us better off than some corners of the world. Here's some reading for the day. Remember-- share the stuff that really speaks to you. The Teaching Machine Imaginary I do miss Audrey Watters, but here's a new Hack Education post that, in typical Watters fashion, links book editing, the Jetsons, teaching machines, and pigeons. Education Reformers Still Don't Und