CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Spring Is Here, Apparently Edition (3/21)
Spring Is Here, Apparently Edition
It's nice enough, but I've lived in NW PA too long to be fooled. We'll just see where this leads us. In the meantime, here's your reading for the week. Also, your reminder that you can get a daily dose of edubloggery by checking out (or subscribing to) NPE's Blog of Blogs
Why Black Parents Aren't Joining the Push To Reopen Schools
The short answer is "trust," but you should go ahead and read the long answer from Melinda Anderson at Mother Jones.
Cyberattacks on Schools Soared During the Pandemic
From EdWeek, a report on one of the big pandemic side effects we haven't been talking about
Let me teach like a normal @$$ human
Active shooter drills, pandemics, and teaching like a superhero, from the blog Affective Lving
Top Chicago Charter School Admits Racist Past
Noble charters join the ranks of "no excuses" charters that are finally admitting that maybe that whole thing was a bad, racist idea.
Questions about the AFT and NEA's "Learning after Covid"
Nancy Bailey has looked at what the unions are touting for post-pandemic programs, and she has some concerns.
Note to MATH advocate Andrew Yang-- 2+2=4
At NYC Educator, a look at Andrew Yang's recent pronouncements on education and teaching in NY which are, well, not good.
Education Reinventers
Gary Rubinstein looks at the history of reformy rebranding as ell as debunking the latest miracle school.
How the stimulus will affect schools, explained
Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat offers a clear explainer of where all that money is going to go (or not)
Outdated research and ideas about teacher quality render report useless
NPEC takes a look at the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2020 teacher prep review, and it is once again a document not to be taken seriously.
One of the fairest school funding models in the nation might be about to fail
We don't usually hear about Wyoming because their schools have been exceptionally well and fairly funded for decades. Now that may be about to end. From the Hechinger Report.
An encouraging consensus on character education
Conservative Andy Smarick at reformy Education Next has some interesting thoughts about c haracter education.
There has to be an accounting
Turns out that maybe AT&T has been bilking the E-rate progam that provides affordable internet for schools. Oopsies.
How children read differently from books vs. screens
From the New York Times, more research about how children really interact with screens.
CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION
Rules for Rural PhilanthropyJuliet Squire is a partner at Bellwether Education Partners, a reliably reformy part of the Fordham-AEI axis. She has traveled the Phillips Exeter-Yale-AEI career trajectory with a stop in the New Jersey Department of Education before landing at Bellwether, where she makes observations about education that I pretty much always disagree with. But she also just released an article for AEI about phi
An Evaluation That Teachers Can UseA post from Jay Wamsted at Education Post (yes, that Education Post--I've said it before and I'll say it again--it's important to read from all over the edu-web) got me thinking about the sources of feedback that teachers can tap. He tells a story about a missed moment in which someone offered him feedback on his teaching that he didn't want to hear, and how he regrets that missed opportunity. Wh
School Choice Dinner PartyPairagraph is a website set up around the idea of conversations, or debates, around a particular question. The website organizers invite a pair of people to address the question in turn for a total of four posts of no more than 500 words each. It's a fun little concept that has, so far, been applied to a broad range of topics. I was recently invited to join in one of these pairings around the que
The Trouble With DataYesterday the Atlantic published an exceptionally helpful piece in the Science section by Robinson Meyer and Alexis C. Madrigal that offers some excellent explanation of why the nation has dropped the data ball for this pandemic. It's a good read from that perspective. But for education folks, there's more. In the body of the article, Meyer and Madrigal share some observations about data, and the
Donors Chose Monday: Books and UnderstandingDonors Choose lets you set up filters, so that you can focus on what you choose. The most obvious is a geographic one that allows you to find classrooms in your area looking for help. But you can also set for the types of classrooms and the types of resources, as well as setting (as I usually do) for rural schools. So one of the classrooms chosen for this week is Ms. McCord's at Allegheny-Clarion
A Learning Loss Debunkery ReaderApparently we are going to be hearing about learning loss all the flipping time now, so I've tried to collect in one place some of the better responses to the crisis du jour. Feel free to bookmark this and to share the articles listed ever time someone pops up to holler that because of Learning Loss we must have testing or school choice or no summer vacation or increased school staff or bonuses fo
ICYMI: Blue Screen of Death Edition (3/14)So the main desktop computer here at the institute is in a state, and we're working from the mobile office, which guarantees a 150% increase in typo frequency. But meanwhile, there are things to read. First, a reminder that NPE's Blog of the Day now provides a daily sampling of the best public education posts on the web. Click on over and subscribe, and get a daily dose of some quality curating.
FL: Let's Assess Four Year OldsWe have been down this road before, but I will beat this drum till my knuckles bleed (and the older my children and my grandchildren get, the harder I'll drum). Florida is once again reporting that 40% of Florida kindergartners are "
