CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Show Weekend Edition (9/29)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Show Weekend Edition (9/29)

ICYMI: Show Weekend Edition

Last weekend was a family wedding in State College, so I did not get this weekly digest done. This weekend I open the local production of The Music Man that I'm directing, so things are a little busy at this house. But I'm still collecting a few good reads for you to read (if you haven't already). Remember to share.

Litigating Algorithms Beyond Education 

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley went to a conference to talk about VAM and heard about the widespread use of similarly bad algorithms all across society. It's not just education, and it's not pretty.

How To Keep Teachers From Leaving The Profession  

From the Atlantic. The secret is in the URL title-- teachers need other teachers to succeed.

How The Bush Foundation Wasted $45 Million Attacking Teachers 

The story of how one more bunch of rich amateurs set out to remake education and failed.

Immigrant kids and a town's backlash  

When the bus driver is against immigration. This is a well-reported piece from the Washington Post  that captures many of the tensions created by large immigration  in small towns.

Another School Leadership Disaster

Jeff Bryant has been taking a look at the lucrative pipeline that puts less-than-awesome candidates in administrative positions.

Blinded By Science 

Nancy Flanagan looks at how throwing around the "s" word doesn't always work out well for educators.

That Stanford Study That Links Achievement To Money 

There were several takes on that study this week (including mine), but I don't think anybody did a better job with it than Jan Resseger.

Media Coverage of Science of Reading 

Would you like a handy reading list for prying apart the latest round of reading warfare? The ever-erudite Paul Thomas has you covered.

Stand For Children Messing with LA Elections 

Why and how is the Oregon-based reformster group messing with Louisiana's education business? The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has tracked it all down.

Digital Ed Has a Cheerleading Problem

Rick Hess clues us in on what we already know-- digital ed tools are often a snare and a delusion and a sad web of false promises.

The Myth of the Behind The Times School Is Wrong  

Yeah, we already knew this, too. But it's nice to see somebody say so.

Do Districts Actually Want Black Male Teachers?

At EdWeek. Actions speak louder than words.

More Money, Less Oversight for Ohio's Charters

Short but sweet-- well, not sweet, exactly-- blog post from 10th period. Ohio is a mess.  

Betsy DeVos, The Musical  

Yes, that's a real show, sort of. Have You Heard had the creator of this nifty musical on the podcast (Jennifer Berkshire actually saw a performance) and this is your must-listen item of the week.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Show Weekend Edition (9/29)

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A Good Teacher Is Not Like A Candle

500+by Peter Greene / 21h

I just hate this kind of thing. First of all, is there any other profession that has to put up with this. Substitute "lawyer" or "plumber" or even "doctor" for "teacher" in this meme, and it just sounds dumb. "Nurse," maybe. (Hmm. What do nursing and teaching have in common as professions. Could it be that they're not commonly associated with testosterone?) We don't expect any professionals to con

SEP 27

Stanford: Opportunity And Testing Baloney

72by Peter Greene / 1d

Look, it's not that I want everyone to stop any discussion of Big Standardized Test scores at all forever (okay, I might, but I recognize that I'm a radical in this issue and I also recognize that reasonable people may disagree with me). But what I really want everyone to stop pretending that the BS Test scores are an acceptable proxy for other factors. But here comes a new "data tool" from Stanfo

SEP 26

RAND Plays Corporate Reformy Buzzword Bingo

20by Peter Greene / 2d

RAND Corporation, with its vision to be "the world's most trusted source for policy ideas and analysis." regularly contributes to the total thinky tank output of material that wants to be viewed as "a report" or "research" or "a study" or "a paper," but is more like an op-ed or blog post that has put on a tie and juiced up its vocabulary. This week they cranked out a new one entitled " Reimagining

SEP 25

NH: Failing To Learn From Charter History

36by Peter Greene / 4d

I have a soft spot in my heart for New Hampshire. I was born there, and much of my family lived there. My grandmother was a legislator for ages, and many of my relatives are still in the state. So it's a bummer to see the state fall into reformy mistakes. Earlier this year, the state announced that they were going to grab some of that free federal money to embark n a five-year mission to seek new

SEP 24

Ohio Has A Chance To Fix A Terrible School Takeover Law. It's Going To Blow It.

100+by Peter Greene / 4d

It looked like Ohio was going to get better, but the legislature is poised to screw it all up. It has been hard to keep up with the news out of Lorain, Ohio, a school district that is being run through the wringer u nder Ohio's terrible, awful, no good, really bad school takeover law (HB 70). Lorain's CEO (a district takeover czar created by HB 70), David Hardy, Jr., is yet another guy who believe

SEP 23

The College Board Tweaked The SAT Adversity Score. But It's Not Fixed-- Or Gone.

24by Peter Greene / 5d

Since David Coleman took the helm at the College Board, its flagship product--the ubiquitous SAT, one-time queen of college entrance exams--has been the victim of a series of unforced errors. The roll-out and walk-back of the "adversity score" is only the latest--and recent reports of that score's death may be greatly exaggerated. The company ran into some glitches in its rush to get a new, Commo

SEP 20

ALEC Issues A Report Card, But Still Fails

41by Peter Greene / 8d

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the corporate Match.com for wealthy mover-shakers and legislators looking for someone to do their homework together. Among their many favorite issues is education, and to that end, ALEC trots out a report card every year rating the states. It is not unlike a sort of businessperson's prospect overview, and it contains a mountain of thinly sliced b

Why Directing Community Theater Is Like Teaching

56by Peter Greene / 9d

Readers of this blog generally get a dose of whatever is on my mind, and what's on my mind at the moment is theater. I'm coming down to the wire on one more community theater production; The Music Man opens one week from 

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