Well, the holiday certainly feels heavily weighted this year, doesn't it. Will people get together? Will people die because they couldn't bear not to see Grampa cut the turkey? And how hard will it be for some folks to think of something to be thankful for? Yes, this is going to be a fun week.
In the meantime, here are some things to read.
Nancy Flanagan makes a great plea for the value and preservation of public education. One more example of why I want to be her when I grow up.
Business Terms Used To Privatize Schools
Nancy Bailey with a very useful glossary of some business-speak that has been used to shape the conversation about public schools.
Alex Gutentag at The Bellows looks at the pandemic digital boom in Californian and what it shows about the face of digital austerity. (Spoiler alert--it's not pretty).
Ed Tech Spending Rampaging in North Carolina
Thomas Ultican takes a look at all the digital cashing in going on in NC. (Spoiler alert--it's not pretty).
Betsy DeVos Legacy (Civil Rights)
We're kind of drowning in these pieces, but as I've argued before, Betsy isn't going away, and it's a good idea to understand just who she is and what she wants. Rebecca Klein's entry into the genre is at HuffPost, and it's a good one.
Okay, one more of these. This time it's Cory Turner at NPR with a not-bad take on the DeVos legacy.
After four years of DeVos, what a Biden presidency will mean
I try to stay away from most of these murky crystal ball pieces, but this is Joy Resmovits returning to the ed beat in the Seattle Times, so it's worth a look.
Cheating detection companies made millions during pandemic. Now students are fighting back.
At the Washington Pst, Drew Harwell takes a look at the new battles between surveillance companies and the students they're spying on (badly).
Why applications are plummeting at Florida universities
Akil Bello joins the gang at Forbes.com education with a story about how Florida is testing its own hjigher ed system into oblivion.
Study Challenges Use Of Test Scores To Gauge Teacher Effectiveness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution brings us yet one more study showing that VAM is junk. SWhat a surprise! Still, a nice addition to the file.
Canceling Student Loan Debt; Just Do It
John Warner at Inside Higher Ed makes the case for canceling college debt.
Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat looks at the inability of researchers to agree on an answer to the question. You know that my answer is "Why should we care?" But it's still striking that we really don't know.
Hechinger Reports has a sobering report about another side of college debt--Parent Plus loans are crushing folks who thought that sending their kids to college was the right thing to do. Wish someone had shown me this article a couple decades ago.
White female teacher bias shown in research
Turns out that a lot of white lady teachers have some race-based bias problems. Hechinger Reports again. Some discouraging research results.
100 online shops to try instead of Amazon
From the Sunshine Guerrilla blog, a look at alternatives to stuffing Jeff Bezos' pockets even more full of money.
CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) continues to focus on confirming conservative judges even as COVID-19 reaches new heights—nearly 12 million cases and a quarter-million deaths—and the expiration of previously enacted relief looms. Measures that expire at year’s end include the suspension of student loan payments, a nationwide moratorium on evictions, and enhanced benefits for more than 13 million unemployed million Americans—a number that is expected to increase in coming weeks due to the resurgence of COVID-19.
The leadership ranks of the 117th Congress that will be sworn in Jan. 3 will be filled with familiar faces. In the Senate, Republicans reelected Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as their leader and Democrats reelected Chuck Schumer of New York as their leader. Runoff elections for Georgia’s senators, to be held Jan. 5, will determine which of them is majority leader and which is minority leader.
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA)
