Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, February 2, 2020

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Sportsball Sunday Edition (2/2)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Sportsball Sunday Edition (2/2)


Sportsball Sunday Edition (2/2)

Human beings are funny creatures. Today we'll celebrate the prognostication of a giant rodent, invest a gazillion dollars in a sportsball contest, and get all excited because our date-labeling system will cough up a palindrome today (spoiler alert: every date-- every last one-- only comes around once). But in the meantime, there are things to read.

An Open Letter to Preschool Homework   
From McSweeney's, a look at homework for preschoolers with characteristic wit.

Four Things You Need To Know About Education Policymaking   
Rick Hess (AEI) at EdWeek offers four fairly solid observations about how the sausage is made, even if he does skip the one about how policy conversations should be informed by people who can talk about how that policy lands in the classroom.

Why Private Equity Keeps Wrecking Retail Chains 
This would have nothing at all to do with education, if private equity and hedge funds weren't so interested in getting into the charter school biz. But they are, so here's a cautionary tale.

In Indiana, School Choice Means Segregation 
The Kappan looks at some research showing that Indiana school choice program, which has ended up looking a lot like a white flight program.

Schools Are Killing Curiosity  
From The Guardian, this is a depressing read. About the time a researcher watches a teacher tell a student, "No questions now-- it's time for learning" you know this is a sobering piece of work.

Journalist with education message white America might not want to hear  

Maureen Downey with a look at Nikole Hannah-Jones and the issues of integration.

Don't be fooled. Tax credits for private school are about dismantling public education .
The education writer at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Linda Blackford, lays out the truth behind tax credit scholarship programs.

Not Burnout, But "Moral Injury" of Doctors  
This WBUR piece is about doctors, but teachers will recognize the issue-- the toll it takes when malpractice is mandated, rules are too restrictive, and resources are too scarce.

Two Decades of Havoc  
Education scholar Yong Zhao synthesizes criticism of PISA, the international assessment regularly used as proof that US schools are failing compared to Estonia, Singapore, etc.

Parent Resistance Thwarts Local Desegregation Efforts 
The AP (here picked up by WTOP) writes about one of the big obstacles to desegregation--  white folks who don't want to let Those People into "their" schools.

More Students Are Homeless Than Ever Before
Laura Camera at US News with some depressing data.

It's GPAs Not Standardized Tests That Predict College Success 
Nick Morrison at Forbes lays out the latest research that shows--again--that high school GPA is a better predictor of college success than the SAT or ACT.

Michigan schools revolt
Michigan has a third grade reading retention rule that is kicking in, and many schools are prepared to circumvent it by any means necessary.

Anti-LGBTQ: Follow the Anti-evolution Road
Adam Laats is a historian who knows about both education and conservative Christianity in the US. The struggle over LGBTQ students in private religious schools reminds him of another time the religious right stood up against the mainstream.

Charter School Funding: Time for lawmakers to fix a flawed system 
The editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette backs the governor on charter funding reform.

Education Reform Has Failed America 
Diane Ravitch hits the central points of her new book in a piece for Time magazine.


CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION


OH: More Voucher Nonsense

I've frequently kvetched that a central fallacy at the heart of school choice is the notion that several parallel school system can be run for the cost of one. "Why," I ask, "can't politicians have the cojones to just say they think school choice is so important that they are going to raise peoples' taxes to pay for it?" Well, the legislature of Ohio (motto "We want to be Florida when we grow up")

JAN 29

FL: Another Voucher Problem (And Not The One You Think)

When the Orlando Sentinel revealed that many Florida private schools-- eighty-some of them!-- were both receiving taxpayer dollars and openly discriminating against LGBTQ students, it was not exactly news. Rebecca Klein had the same story on a national level at Huffington Post back in 2017. Voucher money goes to religious schools, and some religious schools discriminate against LGBTQ students ( an
MI: Whitmer Stands Up For Reading Sense (GLEP Opposes)

Of all the pieces of bad, dumb, abusive policy that have come out of the ed reformster movement, one of the worst is third grade reading retention. Michigan has it, and their governor wants to get rid of it. Guess who wants to stand up for it. Lansing in winter; much like April in Paris How did this damn fool policy get spread across the country? Somebody half-looked at some research and said, "He

JAN 27

McKinsey's New Baloney Sales Pitch For Computerized Classroom

McKinsey is the 800 pound gorilla of consulting, a behemoth with their own set of values about how to drag everything into MarketWorld (I recommend Anand Giridharadas's Winners Take All for a closer look at how that world looks). They have occasionally dipped their toes into the world of education because, hey, there's a lot of money in that pool. One notable adventure was their plan for re-struc
SC: A Bill of Rights For Teachers, Sort Of

Like many other states, South Carolina is failing to hold attract and retain teachers . They're doing an especially lousy job holding onto beginning teachers; after the 2017-2018 school year, 34% of the first year teachers did not return to their classroom. Veterans are also bailing , because of "low pay, a burdensome testing system and a sense they aren’t valued." Wallet Hub ranks South Carolina

JAN 26

ICYMI: Is It Still January Edition (1/26)

Every Sunday (well, almost every Sunday) I post a collection of goodies from the week that I think are worth reading. In case, you know, you missed them. I also encourage you to share anything you like (use its "home" location to share so that they get any benefits of traffic). That's what's going on here. You can dig into the ICYMI archives just by using the little search block in the upper left

JAN 25

Ed Tech Reporters Should Make These Eight Resolutions For 2020

This ran three weeks ago over at Forbes . Three weeks into 2020 it still applies. Audrey Watters bills herself as “an education writer, an independent scholar, a serial dropout, a rabble-rouser, and ed-tech's Cassandra.” Her Hack Education blog is required reading for anyone who cares about technology in education. Since founding the blog in 2010, she has provided a meaty, thoroughly researched a

JAN 24



Impersonating A Teacher

In a John White valedictory piece , he's called "a former English teacher in New Jersey." I have twice this week come across a reformster who says he "started out as a teacher." Regular students of ed reform have seen similar pattern over