CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Summer Vacation Edition (6/14)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Summer Vacation Edition (6/14)

Summer Vacation Edition

Whatever summer vacation means this year, it has finally arrived at my house. Which mostly just means that my wife has shifted from working on things for this year to working on things for next year. Here are some things to read.

Predecessors Try To Fill Void Left By DeVos 
This is a strange little thing. First, that Duncan and Spelling see themselves as somehow way different from DeVos. Also, there's apparently an Old Secretary's Club, and DeVos is very not interested.

Yale Goes Test-Optional
Blame the corona pirates (that's what the Board of Directors calls the current pandemic), but this is the fifth ivy to dump the test for the next class. Susan Adams at Forbes has the story.

If Black Lives Matter, Then Let's Prove It By Fixing Our Schools  
An editorial from the Detroit Free Press points out the obvious-- you don't help launch lives that matter in underfunded, poorly maintained schools.

Teen Girls Organized Nashville's Largest Protest  
Speaking of students undertaking large projects. A great story of teens stepping up. At The Lily.

Teach for America 2020 Trainees To Enter Classroom With Only Tutoring Experience    
The indispensable Mercedes Schneider looks at how TFA is managing to lower the bar even further.

Where's All These Woke White People Come From?   
Michael Harriot at The Root is one of the best writers out there, and this piece is Exhibit A. Thoughtful and nuanced and just a great piece of writing.

Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Are Going To Schools That Push Conversion Therapy  
Rebecca Klein at Huffington Post has an enraging story about some of the private schools that are scooping up taxpayer money. She'd previously shown how some of these schools discriminate against LGBTQ students; now it turns out that's not the worst of it.

University students aren't cogs in a market.   
This story is from Australia, but you'll recognize the issues in the discussion of why students deserve to get more education than simply being loaded wit skills that employers want them to have.

How Betsy DeVos Is Using the Pandemic To Get What She Wants 
The story has been told in bits and pieces, but Jeff Bryant at Alternet steps back for the full picture of how DeVos is using this crisis to push her own agenda in education.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Summer Vacation Edition (6/14)

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Who Should Biden Pick As Education Secretary? - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/06/10/who-should-biden-pick-as-education-secretary/#6e6022e78b3f by @palan57 on @forbes

Teachers Face A Summer Of Soul Searching. What Do They Do In The Fall? - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/06/12/teachers-face-a-summer-of-soul-searching-what-do-they-do-in-the-fall/#286014632993 by @palan57 on @forbes

AL: Why The State Pulled The Plug On A Charter For The First Time

32by Peter Greene / 19h

Last week, the Alabama Public [sic] Charter School Commission took an unprecedented action and revoked a charter school's charter before it even managed to open. It's a tangly story, with connections to several charter school issues. Woodland Prep was supposed to be a hot new charter school, but it came with so much baggage that t here is an entire blog following the entire mess. Believe me-- I'm

Never Mind The Personalized Learning. Let's Do Personalized Learning Instead.

43by Peter Greene / 1d

As the education world scrambles to figure out what next fall will look like, many, many voices are speaking up for reimagined schooling. One particular model has surfaced repeatedly, and it’s not at all new—but it could be. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has set aside some of the stimulus fund for a competitive grant that would reward state-wide virtual schools, much like the model she admir

Five Examples Of What's Wrong With Ed Tech

24by Peter Greene / 2d

I get pitches-- e-mails from PR folks who have noticed that I write about education and want to offer me a chance to talk to an up-and-coming visionary who can tell me all about Bunkadiddle Corporation's new program! The pitches have taken on a pandemic sheen for a few months now ("In these trying times, when students and teachers are all struggling, we offer this Shiny New Thing!"). Mostly they h

John Oilver and Defund the Police

by Peter Greene / 3d

I don't do this often, but all I'm doing in this post is asking you to watch this video from John Oliver looking at the police, how we got here, what we could do. And you must watch through to the very end.

Without The Big Standardized Test, Would Schools Be Flying Blind?

68by Peter Greene / 4d

The future of the big standardized test is in doubt. This year’s pandemic pause made the annual rite of spring both logistically impossible and generally pointless as a means of data collection. With the year thoroughly disrupted, there was no chance that the tests would generate any sort of usable information, but their cancellation raises two more questions—wouldn’t testing next year be equally

PA: Charter Advocacy Chief Booted For Offensive Post

by Peter Greene / 5d

Ana Luiza Lannes Meyers is known to folks who follow the charter school debates in Pennsylvania as a vocal charter advocate as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public [sic] Charter Schools. But as of yesterday, she is out of a job, one more casualty of emotional blowback from the current Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Working on her resume Meyers has previously worked as

No Teachers Teach Average Students

by Peter Greene / 5d

The average height of the staff here at the Curmudgucation Institute is about 4.5 feet (the Board of Directors really pulls the average down). Yet if you buy clothes that fit a 4.5 foot frame, those clothes will not fit anyone here. The average guy named Peter Greene has made at least one major film. And yet, here I sit, with no IMDB entry or residual checks coming in for my work. So here's one re

Six Months From Now

34by Peter Greene / 5d

I've whittled away at this post for days, which is unusual for me and usually means I'm making things worse, not better. And my first impulse in these days has been to stay quiet and listen, because a national conversation about racism doesn't really need one more white guy's voice. But 1) silence is not an option right now and 2) this all has implications for educators. But I warn you-- if I have

ICYMI: Just One Thing After Another Edition (6/7)

21by Peter Greene / 6d

So things have been a little quieter than usual on this page (and I'm late today) in part because what the current conversation about Black Lives Matter needs is not more input from middle aged white guys, and partly because 

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