Well, Congress rushed through their work so that they could get started on their vacation. Why shouldn't the rest of us. Let's take a look at this week's reading list.
In Disorienting Return To Civility, Joe Biden's DOJ Backs Up Betsy DeVos
A couple of outlets picked up this story this week, but only Time found a clever angle to go with a clever headline.
My HBCU experience has been life-changing
Lets have some positive stories this week, please. A nice first-person story here from Marissa Stubbs at The Undefeated. And she's in Florida, so there is hope.
Update: Dispatch from the Covid trenches
Grumpy Old Teacher, back in the building, checks his classroom ventilation. The results are not encouraging.
School Ratings, Ranking and Wrongdoing
Have You Heard welcomes Akil Bello from Fairtest to talk about how much baloney can be squeezed into a ratings list (spoiler alert: a lot).
Jan Resseger adds to the stack of excellent essays explaining just how the chickjen littling about learning loss is a bunch of hooey.
$100M for children "learning faster than ever before" in Tennessee?!
Nancy Bailey takes a look at Tennessee's adoption of Reading360, and why it's not good news.
Who really created the Marvel universe?
A new Stan Lee biography is out, and this is one of the better looks at the attempt to unravel the man's complicated, troublesome legacy. No, it's not about education. I like comics and have read them my whole life. Happy Valentines Day.
Let's grab that barn door and see if we can't get a handle on the loose horse mess that is language mimicking software. Since GPT-s is OpenAI's baby, I'm not sure how much of this is responsible science and how much of it is trying to handicap marketplace imitators, but since these damn things are going to be proposed as teacherbots sooner or later, we should be paying attention to this stuff.
Piano-playing Penn State professor supports students' mental health
From last October in the Collegian. I have mixed feelings about this mechanical engineering prof who closes class with some piano playing, probably related to the mixed feelings about the amount of tuition I sent off to PSU with my daughter years ago, but it's certainly a bit outside tbe box.
How East Stroudsburg schools plan to diversify curriculum, staff and more
A school district in PA makes an attempt and a plan for getting the schools to more properly reflect the diversity of the student body. From the Pocono Record.
Charter schools invaded our neighborhoods without public input
Carl Peterson in Patch for Los Angeles talks to Eastside Padres Contra La Privatization about how charters moved in, public schools were damaged, and local voices were silenced.
Stop Disrespecting Teachers, Please
Arthur Goldtsein is in the New York Daily News detailing the disrespect that NY teachers have been feeling.
Well, the correct answer is "not," but this Hechinger Report article by Kelly Field does a better job than some of detailing the sides at play here.
Village teacher wins $1 million prize
Ranjitsinh Disale wanted to be an engineer but ended up taking on a rough rural gig in India. Now he has a million dollar prize. From NPR
Shelley Duvall is okay. Another not-education story, but a story that's just very human.
A beautiful reflection on the forever-awesome Karen Lewis
Amid tough school reopening battles, Americans continue to cheer teachers unions
Rebecca Klein and Ariel Edwards-Levy at Huffington Post reporting that, contrary to what you're hearing from some politicians and pundits, teachers are not actually widely hated for single-handedly keeping school buildings closed.
