Well, on it goes. Here's some reading from the week. Remember, your choices about which voices to amplify make a difference.
COVID Stimulus Funds for Private School Vouchers The indispensable Mercedes Schneider takes a look at Jeb Bush's old crew at ExcelInEd (formerly FEE) and their idea that stimulus funds should be repurposed to boost school vouchers.
Parents Worried about Special Ed Vouchers Rebecca Klein at HuffPost looks at the issues and concerns surrounding the question of whether or not to allow IDEA waivers for school districts struggling wit getting crisis education to students with special needs. Also, there's a picture of Betsy DeVos that makes it look like she has a halo, so that's something.
9 Ways Schools Will Look Different Anya Kamenetz at NPR looks at some predictions about how Corona-school might look when it starts up. Important to note that Corona-school looks kind of expensive.
Compassion and Grace Accountabaloney looks at a remarkable piece of guidance from, of all things, Georgia's state school superintendent. Worth the read.
Every Chid Left Behind Nancy Flanagan on how a little flexibility and care might avert some of the "crises" we're facing. 6 Reasons Students Aren't Logging On At EdWeek, Peter DeWitt looks at some of the reasons that online crisis education isn't getting traction with everyone.
What has happened to our beloved Big Standardized Test? Why do people keep picking on it? And can we lift it back up to its hallowed heights of the past? I have a report sitting in one of my tabs here that wants to answer those questions, yet somehow falls short. It's FutureEd's report The Big Test , and it is yet another attempt to repackage reformster alternate earth history. It's not super long
At this juncture, nearly all schools in this country have been shut down, forcing teachers, families, and students to grapple with some form of crisis schooling. The need for teachers to teach and students to learn at a distance has sparked discussion of many issues. How do schools keep contact with students who have little or no access to the internet? How do teachers construct useful materials
Education Next's spring issue is featuring a little Common Core debate, asking if the Core worked. There are three responses in the actual debate, plus a sort of bonus response in a separate article. I'm sorry to report that many of the same delusions that brought us the Core disruption of education are still firmly in place. Let's take each of these one at a time. Warning-- every one of these guy
It is one of the more arresting headlines I've seen in a while. Atop a new blog at Inside Higher Ed, we find this question : Can remote teaching make us more human? Well, now. Short answer. No. Slightly less short answer. I suppose that anything can make us more human if we use the experience to reflect on our humanity. Long answer. The authors, Caroline Levander and Peter Decherney, are a pair of
Periodically the courts get involved in the question of what states are actually supposed to provide. Back in 2017 a case went all the way to the Supremes that was designed (no case gets before SCOTUS without being carefully prepared and selected and curated by a bunch of Major Players) to get at the question of how hard a district had to work on that whole IEP thing-- how much education is "enoug
Arne Duncan penned an op-ed in the Washington Post this week; the piece is notable because it is not baloney, but addresses one of the issues that the great pandemic pause has brought to the fore-- internet accessibility. Duncan notes that currently if you don't have internet, you don't have school. And he notes that while internet providers stepped forward with heartwarming offers of free intern
So, Venture Beat is a website touts itself as the leading source for transformative tech news and events that provide deep context to help business leaders make smart decisions and stay on top of breaking news. That includes "sponsored" news like this very special piece from Lovo , a Berkeley-based company whose sub-title is "Love Your Voice" and whose co-founder explains their mission as "Making
While Trump has announced a variety of groups he wants to gather together to charter a pandemic recovery for the nation, there's one group that is already on the job-- and their plans for public education suck. The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission -- doesn't that sound grand? It sounds like a real official government thing, only it isn't, exactly. It's the project of the Heritage Foundatio
Well, of all the stupid reasons to re-open schools before summer comes, this offering from Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has to be among the worst: One reason Baker said he wants to see schools reopen before the end of the school year would be so students could take tests to determine how far behind they fell due to the pandemic. Baker has been an ed reformster since he was elected in 2014,
Sometimes I use this blog as a sort of macro-- when I find myself engaged in the same pieces of the same argument, it just gets easier to try to hash it all out in one spot so that thereafter I can just point instead of typing it all out again. This isn't very much about education, it's not very carefully edited (in fact, I may well keep adding edits till I get it closer to what I really want--he
The vast majority of the nation’s schools have pressed pause due to the current pandemic. In many areas they will stumble through the remainder of a year that will little resemble an ordinary year. This is already prompting many folks to declare this a golden opportunity to reconsider some of the traditional features of U.S. schooling. If we’ve got to have school without grades, without desks and
In other words, there's no such thing as a new normal. But here we are anyway. Have some reading to pass the time. My Transition To Emergency Remote Teaching As always, I would like to be as smart as P. L. Thomas when I grow up. Here, while reflecting on his own transition, he offers insight on what is or is not right with remote teaching. A Dozen Good Things That Could (Just Maybe) Happen As A Re
I created a series of posts about the teaching of literature, and they ended up being sprinkled here and there. I thought I would just pump them out one after another but after I got started--squirrel!! So for those of you how enjoyed
