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Sunday, May 30, 2021

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Memorial Day Weekend Edition (5/30)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Memorial Day Weekend Edition (5/30)




Memorial Day Weekend Edition

It has been a time, with a double funeral yesterday and some other little series of life adventures this week. Makes you want to shake some folks and ask, "Is this really what you want to do with your limited time on earth?" Be better. Anyway, I have a few things for you to read this week. Here's the list.

What Education Researchers Can Learn From Teachers

Larry Ferlazzo at EdWeek lets us hear from four teachers with some good thoughts about what researchers need to do to shape up their act.

Here's the truth behind the right-wing attacks on critical race theory

Jeff Bryant at Alternet with a look at some of the forces behind the big crt push, and some comments from people actually in the field.

School choice and charter proponents target public education in key states

A good overview of the rising tide of teacher gag laws, and the rising tide of opposition to them. From Rachel Cohen at Capital & Main.

Bricolage Academy educators vote in favor of unionization

Such a vote isn't always a big deal--but this time we're talking about the staff of a New Orleans charter school. This could be the start of something good.

Turnaround is a relic

Chicago's board of education decides to retire its largest turnaround program.

EdTech in schools -- a threat to data privacy?

This piece from Velislava Hillman looks at just what edtech companies want (spoiler alert: educating students is not Job One).

Why A Billionaire Telecom Executive Gave $1,000 In Cash To Quincy College Grads

From Forbes, the story of a billionaire exec who decided to do something useful (and non-prescriptive) with his money.


From the "you think you've got troubles" file. Also from the "this is maybe closer to happening here than I'd like to imagine" files.


Milton Hershey was doing educational philanthropy back in the old days, and his death in 1945 left a huge estate that became a massive fund for the Milton Hershey School, a school set up to help poor orphans. The school is still in operation, and it has giant piles of money, which critics say should say should be being spent on the school's educational mission.


Yeah, this HuffPost piece is not going to make you feel better. It will, however, remind you that some people in the classroom are bringing along a whole set of toxic beliefs.


From the School of Thought blog, a call for a kinder, gentler, not so focused on being perfect approach to the classroom.


Mark Weber, writing for New Jersey Policy Perspective, shows how Camden is losing sooooo many Black teachers.


Nancy Flanagan with a reminder that wrong is wrong is wrong, even and especially when it comes to education and children.

Eliminating Federal Charter Schools Program Would Curb Academic and Financial Abuses by Charter Operators

The federal program for financing charter schools is still there, still wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. Jan Resseger explains why it should be ended.

A Productive Meeting Between the District and Teachers about the Next School Year

Let's wrap things up with the latest from McSweeney's. Short, bittersweet, and funny.





Report: How Much Do Students Pay For Corporate Tax Breaks? - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/28/report-how-much-do-students-pay-for-corporate-tax-breaks/?sh=6de53c60492a by @palan57 on @forbes

Wisconsin Cyber Charter Cited By ACLU For Blocking LGBTQ Group - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/21/wisconsin-cyber-charter-sued-by-aclu-for-blocking-lgbtq-group/?sh=38153ccd73f8 by @palan57 on @forbes

Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are Comfortably Flush. Will It Last? - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/20/pennsylvania-charter-schools-are-comfortably-flush-will-it-last/?sh=68d56c0c6eb5 by @palan57 on @forbes




The Problem of Parent Centered Education
Teacher gag laws spreading across the country are generally billed as anti-CRT, but of course their reach is much broader than that , forbidding discussion of "controversy" and outlawing any teaching that might make students "uncomfortable" or be "divisive." The debate--well, actually not a lot of real debate because GOP legislators are using their majorities to just ram these bills through--even
Should Some School Districts Be Broken Up?
New York City's school system is not really an example of anything except itself, despite the many times it's written about and pointed at. This should not be a surprise. We are lousy at history in this country, and so we miss obvious things, like the change in scale. Thomas Jefferson was the President of a country with roughly six million people in it; New York City contains a bit over eight mil
Eroding Trust In Chester Upland
Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania has the distinction of having been put through every gauntlet that a modern school district ca be forced to run. Currently, that means that CUSD is facing a partial takeover of the district by charter operators . Parents, taxpayers and teachers within the district have not developed much trust in the various processes put in place to "help" the distr
What Privatization Actually Means
When we talk about the privatization of education, the conversation is almost always about the privatization of the vendors. Publicly owned and operated schools replaced by privately owned and operated charter and private schools, plus a dizzying web of real estate developers, charter management organizations, other support businesses. Even the extreme form, where education is unbundled and can b
Should Schools Offer Virtual School Options In The Fall?
I'll admit that this blooming controversy snuck up on me. In Pennsylvania, school districts have offered virtual options for years in the Time Before Covid. It would never have occurred to me that a district shouldn't. But apparently we're going to have fussing about that. kickstarted today by the NYC mayoral announcement that public schools will be all in person this fall. That's a dumb idea. I
ICYMI: And Now I'm Older Edition (5/23)
What a week here at the Institute. But now it's time to get back to reading, and we've got a fine selection of pieces this week. I'll remind you that you can also keep up on the current writing about public e3d by following the Network for Public Education's Blog of Blogs . Hop on over, put your email in the little box, and get a daily dose of quality education writing. Now on to this week's list
GOP Election Preview: Our Children Were Robbed
I live in Northwester Pennsylvania, and this is Trump country. We've got a GOP controlled legislature and a Democratic governor, and a great deal of contentiousness stemming from that situation. And in the recent primary election, voters passed a constitutional amendment that de-powered the governor in the case of, say, a massive pandemic and gave emergency powers to the legislature instead. Thou
19 Rules for Life (2021 Edition)
I first posted this list when I turned 60, and have made it an annual tradition to get it out on my birthday and re-examine it, edit it, and remind myself why I thought such things in the first place. I will keep my original observation-- that this list does not represent any particular signs of wisdom on my part, because I discovered these rules much in the same way that a dim cow discovers an e