CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: So Long, February Edition (2/22)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: So Long, February Edition (2/22)

So Long, February Edition (2/22)

A reminder that you can help amplify the voices that you think need to be heard. Go to the original post and share with your network. Do your part to make sure folks are heard whose message speaks to you. Now for this week's list.

Borrowing a Literacy Strategy from Band 
An interesting notion from Edutopia. After all, reading music is readin. "Reading in band has an additional hitch: Students have to read their parts while hearing several other parts at the same time, which requires them to be strong, independent readers—"

The Death of the Crossing Guard
Mr Bob was 88 years old when he saved two children's lives at the crosswaklk. From Washington Post.

How Play Is Making a Comeback in Kindergarten
Actually from a couple of weeks ago in Hechinger, this is an encouraging addition to the "Yes, play is important" file.

High Stakes Tests Aren't Better- And They Never Will Be
Lelac Almagor (an English teacher at a charter school) writes for the Boston Review, explaining how testing damages education, particularly for the non-wealthy.

Will Software Start Helping Students Cheat On Papers?
No, no it won't. At least not well.  But here's one more consideration of the computer role in cheating.

Betsy DeVos's Voucher Boondoggle
Business writer Andrea Gabor takes a look at the voucher con job behind the DeVos budget proposal. In Bloomberg.

Ending High Stakes Testing and Improve Education
A Florida teacher writes about how removing the Big Standardized Test as a graduation requirement would improve the system.

New Mexico Sues Google
The state has decided to go after the tech giant for collecting student data through the ubiquitous Chromebooks. The Verge has the story.

Don't Mess With Texas Schools
Have You Heard travels to Texas, where GOP candidates are trying had to look like they support public education even as a long series of fora have been held bringing Rs and Ds together to talk ab out education. How's that working out (transcript available for those of us who never have time to listen to podcasts).

People Are Not Cattle
G F Brandenburg offers a quick refresher about William Sanders and the origin of value-added measurement in the world of farming.

Getting Rid of Gym Class
Do you not yet subscribe to Nancy Flanagan's blog? Because you should. Here is some history and thought about what should be included in the required core of classes.

I Love Teaching, Even When It Doesn't Love Me Back   
The most-read of the week is a piece by Jose Luis Vilson. "Teaching from l;ove isn't perfec t, but neither are we."

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: So Long, February Edition (2/22)

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Social and Emotional Learning Is Drawing Fire

21by Peter Greene / 1d

I told you so. If you are of a Certain Age, you remember Outcome Based Education, the Next Big Education Thing of the 1990s . Its basic idea was to reduce education to observable behaviors-- all those lesson plans with "The Student Will Be Able To...," are artifacts of OBE. The architects were intent on reducing all learning to something cold, hard and observable instead of fuzzy objectives like "

FEB 21

Common Core Is Dead. Long LIve Common Core.

49by Peter Greene / 2d

The Common Core State Standards are dead. Done. Finished. Authorities have told us so. Betsy DeVos delivered a brief eulogy at the American Enterprise Institute back in January. “And at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead,” she declared. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis just announced that the work of “rooting out all vestiges of Common Core” done, and new standards would now r

OH: Whose Gold Makes That Parachute?

by Peter Greene / 2d

It turns out there's one more problem with the kind of autocratic corporate-style takeover that Ohio implemented under HB 70. You may recall that Lorain, Ohio, is one of three districts to be placed under the control of an all-powerful CEO . It was not pretty. An Ohio-style school CEO has all the powers of a school board and a superintendent, less the ability to levy taxes but plus the power to ar

FEB 20

Avoiding Teacher Compensation

78by Peter Greene / 3d

Erik Hanushek has been at this for a while, and his shtick is pretty well polished. With Raj Chetty , he's been making the assertion that having a good teacher will make a student wealthier . While he can occasionally seem like a champion of teachers and teaching, he also lapses often into the old reform whinge that teachers don't really want to be held accountable for their performance, and that

FEB 19

Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline

1Kby Peter Greene / 4d

I knew I was going to be cranky after the very first sentence: The workforce pipeline begins with quality early education. This is Gil Minor, a retired CEO of a Fortune 200 company; he's also the chair of the Virginia Higher Education Council and vice-chairman of the group he's plugging in this op-ed, E3: Elevate Early Education. And not everything he has to say is odious claptrap, but that first

FEB 18

How To Improve The Quality Of Teaching With Tools Districts Already Have At Hand (And How To Mess It Up)

45by Peter Greene / 5d

There is never a shortage of ideas about how to improve the quality of teaching in U.S. classrooms. From the intrusive and convoluted (“Let’s give every student a test and then run the test through a complex mathematical formula and use it to identify the strongest and weakest teachers and then fire the weak ones and replace them with strong ones, somehow”) to the traditional and banal (“Time for

Choice, Parents, Power, Caveat Emptor, and Stupid

76by Peter Greene / 5d

Here's an opening sentence from a recent piece of charter advocacy from the74 : But charter schools and the new, more consumer-oriented public education landscape they represent are here to stay. Well, no. I'm going to skip past the "here to stay" part, because what caught my attention was the "consumer-oriented pub lic education landscape" bit. Because that's not what choicers have been pushing.

FEB 16

ICYMI: Discount Chocolate Edition (2/16)

20by Peter Greene / 7d

Well, sure-- what else does one do after Valentines Day except shop for deep discounts on chocolate! While you're eating irresponsibly, here's some reading from the week. Remember to share. School choice detrimental to public 

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