CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: August Already Edition (8/2)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: August Already Edition (8/2)

August Already Edition (8/2)

So, here are some things to read.

Is the push to reopen schools really a plot to dismantle them?
Accountabaloney listens to some bonus content from Have You Heard that lays out how DeVos has set up a pandemic win-win for herself.

Worst Year Ever  
Nancy Flanagan reflects on the year and wonders if it couldn't actually mark a good change for education?

How the child care crisis will distort the economy for a generation.
Politico takes a look at the ripples that are going to spread from the pandemic crisis in child care (which is just a more severe version of the child care crisis we were already having) 

Trump paints teachers as villains; how that hurts students.
I saw this piece when Anna Lutz Fernandez posted this on her own, but then NBC picked it up, and here it is. Well worth the read.

Note from the principal: This fall your classroom will be equipped with a lion.
From Mary, a blog that specializes in satire. A reminder that satire doesn't always make you laugh.

Infamous John Deasy Resigns, Again 
Thomas Ultican with a well-researched look at how reformsters manage to fail upward, with a case study of one of the great serial failures of ed reform.

The Post-Espinoza End Game  
Bruce Baker and Preston Green take a look at what comes next, now that SCOTUS has busted another hole in the wall between church and state.

How To Stop Magical Thinking in School Reopening Plans 
Share this with an administrator. Jersey Jazzman lays out how to do a reality check on a district's plan for the fall.

Biden Opens Door for Vouchers
Not on purpose, mind you. But here's Max Eden to explain the opportunity that reformsters think Biden just handed them.

Does Covid-19 spell the end for public schooling?
Finally, this scary read from USA Today, conjecturing about just how bad this could be for education in the long run.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: August Already Edition (8/2)

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SCOTUS Gives Private Religious Schools The Okay To Discriminate Freely - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/07/16/scotus-gives-private-religious-schools-the-okay-to-discriminate-freely/#6585b9e16366 by @palan57 on @forbes


For Teachers, This Is All Unfortunately Familiar - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/07/25/for-teachers-this-is-all-unfortunately-familiar/#3685b1d73c9a by @palan57 on @forbes

Report: PA Charters Game The Special Education System.

21by Peter Greene / 1d

In a new report, Education Voters of Pennsylvania looks at “how an outdated law wastes public money, encourages gaming the system, and limits school choice.” Fixing the Flaws looks at how Pennsylvania’s two separate funding systems have made students with special needs a tool for charter gaming of the system, even as some of them are shut out of the system entirely. The two-headed system looks li

Pence, DeVos, And More Private School Choice Baloney

200+by Peter Greene / 2d

My thanks to Bill Ferriter, who raised some of this on Twitter, thereby allowing me to boost my blood pressure before I even got all the way home from vacation. Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos and a few other notables took a trip yesterday to North Carolina, to plug an assortment of their favorites issues while visiting a private school that, unsurprisingly, underlined everything wrong with their favorit

Diary of a Socialist Indoctrinator

67by Peter Greene / 3d

This ran over a year ago at Forbes.com in response to a comment by Trump Jr. and for some reason I never shared it over here. Correcting that now, since teachers are once again teaching students to hate America. Monday We started the week here at Karl Marx Middle School with the usual reminders about monitoring the hall between classes and limiting bathroom passes during class periods. Principal

Archives: Personalization and Outliers

by Peter Greene / 4d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Personalization and the Outliers Henry Ford was an early proponent of personalization. "Any customer can have a car pained any color that he wants," said Ford in 1909, "so long as it is black." There have always been limits to personalization. I like to wear hats, bu

Archives: Myth of the Hero Teacher

by Peter Greene / 4d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Oh, that damn hero teacher. She does it for the kids, and not because she likes to eat and have a place of shelter. And now we need her to answer the call again. I've bitched about this myth a few times, but here's an early take on this damaging trope: The Myth of th

Archives: What Does The Free Market Really Foster?

by Peter Greene / 5d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. If I ever get a "theory" named after me, let it be this one-- The free market does not foster superior quality; the free market fosters superior marketing. And here are some of the many times I've talked about it. What Choice Won't Do Netflix and the Myth of Personal

Archives: Test Prep

by Peter Greene / 5d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. As we argue about whether or not the Big Standardized Test should be given this year (spoiler alert-- no, it shouldn't), let's take a look at some of the reasons it sucks up so much time during the year. And no, test prep is not about memorizing a list of facts. It's

Archives: Nobody Really Wants Choice

by Peter Greene / 6d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Despite the constant focus on school choice, I remain unconvinced that choice is what people really want. Nobody Really Wants Choice Families need a choice. Parents want a choice. Poor students deserve a choice. We hear the rhetoric over and over again, but I remain

Archives: Whitney Tilson and DFER

by Peter Greene / 7d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. This profile of Whitney Tilson, a gabillionaire hedge funder and a founding father of DFER and a guy who got in on the ground floor of reformsterism, looks at many of the talking points that are still driving the discussions about education. You can team this piece u

Archive: Support Public Schools

by Peter Greene / 7d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. As various privatizers and profiteers try to use the coronavirus as a mean to Katrina public ed into oblivion, here's a listicle of reasons to support one of the US's oldest institutions. 10 Reasons To Support Public Schools Public education has become a political or

Archives: Slow Schools

by Peter Greene / 7d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. That time that Daniel Katz argued in favor of the educational equivalent of a slow foods movement, and I chimed in with a "Yeah, what he said, because this..." Slow Schools In a recent blog post, Daniel Katz made a plea for a slow schools movement (like the slow food

Archive: Forever Schools

by Peter Greene / 9d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. From 2014, and spun from a Buzzfeed article that incorrectly predicted the beginning of the end for charters. But I still like the idea, take from those cute puppy posters about adopting a pet "forever." Forever Schools Public schools are forever schools, not until s

Archive: TNTP and The Opportunity Myth

by Peter Greene / 9d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. TNTP first crammed the discussion of education with the Widget Effect, one of those faux white papers that thinky tanks pop out. Their new attempt to "inform" everyone's conversation is Th Opportunity Myth which, sadly, I see quoted far too often. Here's what I hd to

Archives: Teacher Time

by Peter Greene / 10d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Teacher Time Every profession measures time differently. Doctors and lawyers measure time in hours or vague lumps. Teachers measure time in minutes, even seconds. If a doctor (or his office) tell you that something is going to happen "at nine o'clock," that means som

Archives: Not Loving Personalized [sic] Learning

by Peter Greene / 10d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Of course it's being pitched heavily, again, as a solution to Covid woes. But... 8 Reasons Not To Love Personalized [sic] Learning As we roll into 2019, it becomes increasingly clear that much of the education debate is going to center on Personalized [sic] Learning.

Archives: The Hard Part

by Peter Greene / 11d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. The most-read thing I've ever published, with close to a million hits on HuffPost. As noted, I would have been a little more careful if I'd known this was going to be so widely read. The Hard Part They never tell you in teacher school, and it's rarely discussed elsew

Archives: Teacher Merit Pay

by Peter Greene / 12d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Again from seven years ago, and again, still completely applicable today. Why Teacher Merit Pay Is Stupid Sometimes we forget the obvious, so let me spell it out. Here's why teacher merit pay will never make sense.

Archives: Defending Music Education

by Peter Greene / 12d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. An important idea to bring up, now that districts are looking for things to cut. Stop "Defending" Music Today I ran across one more xeroxed handout touting the test-taking benefits of music education, defending music as a great tool for raising test scores and making

Archive: Schools Don't Serve Businesses

by Peter Greene / 13d

While the Institute is away at a corporate retreat, far, mostly, from the interwebz, I've arranged for some dips into the archives. Hard to believe it's been seven years since the Gates Foundation mouthpiece set me off. But this still applies (and he wasn't the last to suggest this. The Wrongest Sentence Ever In The CCSS Debate At Impatient Optimists, a Gates Foundation website, Allan Golston rec

ICYMI: Vacation Edition (7/19)

by Peter Greene / 14d

The Institute staff and board of directors are headed for a corporate retreat in a place where the internet doesn't really reach, so things will be quiet here for a bit. But before I go, here's some reading for you to do. Sorry for all the paywalls today. There have been several recurriing themes in this week's coverage. For instance, lots of folks have noticed that Betsy DeVos's current 

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