CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Father's Day Edition (6/20)
Father's Day Edition
My father is in his mid-80s, not quite as spry as he once was, but still the smartest human I know. I have a lot more to say, but I just erased a humongous paragraph because I realized it just needs to be a separate post. So let's get on to the reading for this week.
I will warn you up front that there's a lot of critical race theory stuff on the list this week, and you might want to skim and just pick out one or two to read, because lordy this controversy is depressing. There's other stuff here, too. I promise.
This New Yorker piece is a great explainer of how Christofer Rufo built an erupting right-wing mountain out of this long-simmering academic theory.
This is turning out to be a whole sub-genre of CRT coverage, in which dipstick legislators are asked to explain what exactly they're opposed to. Low hanging fruit, but instructive. And in this piece, Kyle Whitmire goes the extra mile by moving on from asking a middle aged white man to asking a middle aged Black man.
Alex Thomas at the Daily Dot takes the same story idea and takes it to scale by asking a whole bunch of Senators.
Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider in the Nation looks at the question of just what bad ideas Biden is carrying over from his previous time in DC.
James Murphy in Slate with a look at what really gives folks a leg up get into a fancy college. Not affirmative action, not even legacies--it's private schools. I found some of these numbers surprising.
Three reporters for NBC discover that conservatives are parachuting in to disrupt school boards again--this time with CRT as the hook.
Perhaps because laws keep getting passed and penalties threatened. Aris Foley at The Hill.
I'm always leery of big city journalists coming to rural stories, but this New York Times story feels true to me. In West Virginia, they're trying to boost local fortunes with better schooling--but what do young people do when they've got a good education, but no local prospects?
It's the end of the school year, and Nancy Flanagan is not feeling happy about the current state of education.
Gary Rubinstein went to an online seminar about the great ideas about school takeovers in Tennessee. He came equipped with facts about the massive failures of that policy in the state, and though he had resolved to hold his tongue, well...
In an NBC op-ed, Brian Franklin looks at the problem of states that have forbidden teachers to teach the full truth of a new federal holiday, focusing on Texas.
The Onion is on the job again.
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