CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June:

ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June

And not a word here about Brexit.  

The Importance of Parent Voice

Talking about the co-opting of language and  parent voice in Nashville and elsewhere.

The Reading Rules We Would Never Follow As Adults

Those rules we impose on student readers that, as adults, we would never stand for, and what that tells us about the authenticity of reading instruction. 

School Reform Is Really about Land Development

Somehow this sat and stewed for about a month before it got traction. It is an absolute must-read. If you only read two pieces on this list, this should be one of them.

What's Wrong with Christie's Wrongheaded School Aid Plan?

The spectacle of Tom Moran actually calling Christie really wrong.

Failure

You can't go wrong with Alfie Kohn, who may not blog often, but every time it's well thought out and deeply important.

CBE and ALEC Preparing Students for the Gig Economy

Competency based education is perfect grooming for the gig economy, where nobody ever has a steady job.

America's Not-So-Broken Education System

This would be the other must-read post from the week. Jack Schneider puts the whole picture in perspective and goes back to the fundamental flawed premise of reform.

North Carolina: The Ongoing Destruction of Public Education

Every so often, it's worth taking a moment to just step back and take in the full breadth of North Carolina's continuing attack on public schools and the teachers who work in them 

When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

Not directly about education, this looks at how Wall Street is taking over basic services like health care, and the miserable side effects for people who depend on those services. It will all seem distressingly familiar.

No Words Can Charm a Computer

A student writes a letter to the editor that beautifully outlines why computer-based scoring is a stupid idea.

Politicians Say They Care About Education: Now Public School Advocates Are Putting Them To the Test

The education planks that should be in every party's platform

Vivian Connell: Her Last Post

Of all the voices that Diane Ravitch has amplified, none has been more moving and heart-wrenching than Vivian Connell, the teacher blogging about her long fight with ALS. This week she made her final post.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June:

The Truth Behind Grit

In 1955, researchers Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith approached every family on Kauai, HI, who had a child that year. 698 families said yes, beginning one of the longest studies of childhood development and childhood adversity ever conducted.The study is featured in a fascinating article at Mosaic Science by Lucy Maddox. The piece never uses the word "grit," but it looks at the question of re

5 by Peter Greene / 24min hide  //  save

Time To Speak Up on ESSA Regulations

While the new education law is on the books, it still remains to follow ESSA:The Law with it's even-more-important sequel ESSA: The Regulations. It's the body of regulations that determines exactly what the law means, how exactly the law will influence day to day life in Educationland.So the writing of ESSA regulations is Really Important, and it's an especially big deal this time because Secretar

53 by Peter Greene / 3h 

CBE: Personalized Education & The Indexing Problem

There are plenty of reasons not to like Competency Based Education, which can be found these days shambling about under the nom de guerre "personalized education." It's an appealing name, as it evokes images of a student with her own personal tutor and guide, her own educational concierge. Instead, it's actually a student strapped to a personal computer screen watching a parade of adapti

27 by Peter Greene / 13h 

PA: Cybers Are Delusional

It's been little more than a week since the bricks and mortar portion of the charter school industry took a big, hard swipe at their cyber-siblings. As you may recall, three major charter school groups released a "report" that was basically a blueprint for how to slap the cyber-schools with enough regulation to make them finally behave. The report was rough, noting all of the worst findi

6 by Peter Greene / 1d 

MD: State Super Gets Writing Lesson

Les Perelman is one of my heroes. For years he has poked holes in the junk science that is computer-graded writing, bringing some sanity and clarity to a field clogged with silly puffery.We are all indebted to Fred Klonsky for publishing an exchange between Perelman (retired Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at MIT) and Jack Smith, the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools. Maryland is

26 by Peter Greene / 1d 

JUN 24

OK: An Example for All of Us

Oklahoma has taken its share of lumps in the ed debates. Their legislature is not quite as determined to burn public education to the ground as are the legislatures of North Carolina or Florida. It's not quite as committed to cashing in on the charter revolution as Ohio. But Oklahoma remains in the grip of reformster baloney, and teachers are tired and frustrated. The word 'frustrated" comes

100+ by Peter Greene / 1d 

School Accountability Camps

Now that ESSA has opened the door (maybe, kind of) to new approaches to school accountability. What are the possibilities? Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute has outlinbed four possibilities in a list calculated to help us all conclude that only one of the possibilities is really legit. The list apparently grows out of the Fordham contest to design a compatibility system; I entered that compet

16 by Peter Greene / 1d 

Do Interim Tests Help?

You know the drill. We have to take the Big Standardized Tests in the spring, so in the fall and winter, maybe multiple times, we're going to take the pre-test, or practice test, or interim test, or testing test test.The plan is that this will get the students ready for the BS Test (because it is such an artificial, inauthentic task that it doesn't resemble any other activity except taking similar

57 by Peter Greene / 1d 

JUN 23

Intangible Greatness

You may have heard by now the satisfying news that the Supreme Court spanked Abbie Fisher in a decision that provides, as Salon put it, "A massive blow to mediocre white people coasting on their racial privilege." Fisher (and her lawyer, notorious affirmative action combatant Edward Blum) argued that as a mediocre white person, she should automatically get preference over a mediocre blac

42 by Peter Greene / 2d 

Attacking the Public in Public Education

Many parts of the attack on US public education have not been subtle or hard to detect. The refrain "our schools are failing" has been so steadily repeated for the past few decades that it is now accepted uncritically, independent of any evidence other than "Hey, I keep hearing people say it, so I guess it must be true." Now we hear it just tossed off as an aside, an assumption

51 by Peter Greene / 2d 

JUN 22

Charterista Faux Teacher Programs Make ESSA Demands of Feds

The damndest things turn up on Twitter some days. Take this document. Entitled "Joint Statement Calling for Transparency of Outcomes to Improve Teacher Preparation and Better Serve Students and Districts," this is a fairly transparent demand by several "alternative path" teaching programs that new regulations give them a better advantage in the Brave New ESSA World.Urban Teache

18 by Peter Greene / 3d 

PA: A Curious Online Learning Bill

I'm not honestly sure what to make of this one, but this bill has actually passed in the PA House, so we should probably pay a little bit of attention. It deals with online learning, so that demands attention as well.House Bill 1915 doesn't even have a snappy name, but its purpose is to establish the Online Course Clearinghouse.The bill was put out there by Rep. Jason Ortitay (R) who indicated tha

11 by Peter Greene / 3d 

JUN 21

Twenty Two Years & Lost Possibilities

Our local newspaper runs a "22 years ago today" item most days, a quick snapshot of what people were up to 22, 44 and 66 years ago. This morning I picked up the paper and saw a name I think about every year.The student was in my class, long long ago. He was what we like to call an "at risk" student, which is such a professional term to use, when the human reality of at risk stu

46 by Peter Greene / 4d 

JUN 20

Live Blogging Ed Reform Marriage Counseling Session

A few weeks ago, Robert Pondiscio wrote what seemed to me to be a fairly well-measured piece about the uneasy and possibly-unraveling collaboration between reformy conservatives and reformy liberals. I even wrote a vaguely thoughtful response. But lots of folks absolutely lost their heads, and the post and various responses to it bounced all over the reformy side of the blogoverse.That seems to ha

11 by Peter Greene / 5d 

Mexico: How Bad Can the Ed Debates Get?

I try to be careful with word choice. I've been reluctant to call the reformster-driven ed debates in this country a "war" or even an "assault" because when we inflate the nature of some conflict, we dilute the meaning of words, words that we may need when something that does more closely resemble an actual war, with fighting and shooting and killing. Which takes us to Mexico.N

100+ by Peter Greene / 5d 

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June:

IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller

We think it’s time we spoke honestly about education and the role of the student in it. For the past two decades, many so called “experts” have absolved students of any responsibility in the education process. From telling students they don’t have to do homework, to lowering the passing grades and watering down curricula and tests, and most egregiously, to contending that students are incapable of staying focused longer than ten minutes at a time, the student has been removed from education’s equation. We believe this egregious assumption has been mostly about those students “experts” have low expectations of …mostly urban street kids.

Many of today’s students have a very hard time having to overcome the difficulty that usually accompanies learning new things. Many just say, “I can’t do this” and quit. The truth of the matter is that everything is hard when you start. Riding a bicycle is hard when you start, so is shooting a basketball, tying your shoes or learning the times table.

Quitting because it is difficult or because it doesn’t come easily is NOT how learning happens. In fact, learning, much like being successful in any other endeavor you can think of, doesn’t start off easily. The beginning of everything is a challenge, a battle, something unfamiliar. When things are unfamiliar, they are hard. That’s just how things are, that’s how they have always been. The fact is that the more you become with anything, the better you will get at that unfamiliar task and the “easier” it becomes.

We know this. We’ve seen it happen time and time again in classrooms. Over and over again, We all have had students complain that something we were trying to teach them, something with which they were totally unfamiliar orIT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing: 

Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein)

Over the years I have written this blog, I have posted comparisons of medical clinicians and public school teachers. The substantial differences between the two helping professions (e.g., doctors work one-on-one, teachers in groups; doctors’ decisions can have immediate consequences for life and death, much less so for teachers; differences in salaries; social status, etc.) seemingly made comparisons far-fetched. What I focused on, however, was the centrality of the relationship between teacher and student, doctor and patient, as the core of both helping professions, one for learning in school and the other maintaining good health for patients (see here and here).

In this post and others to come, I offer examples of such a relationship between doctor and patient that captures the depth, breadth, and importance of that relationship  to both clinician and patient. Such accounts are uncommon in medical literature.

Joel Merenstein retired in 2005 from his family medicine practice in Pittsburgh (PA). He wrote this article for The Journal of Family Practice in 2010. He and two colleagues have recently published essays about family practice in The Human Side of Medicine.*

Being in practice for 42 years was like running a marathon. Things seem easy and pleasant at first, but then as time goes by, you hit the “wall” and you feel like you can’t go on. “It’s just too hard,” you think. And you wonder: “What am I doing here?”

In an actual marathon, you hit that wall somewhere around the 20-mile mark. (At least that’s what my son tells me.) But in my family medicine practice, I hit the wall at the 10-year mark.

If, like me, you decide not to quit, the endorphins kick in. You feel a high and know you could go on like this forever. You wonder to yourself: “Can life really be this good?”

And then, as the years pass by, you and your patients change and you know the race is coming to an end. It’s time to stop running. Yet, there are many losses in Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform | gadflyonthewallblog

Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform | gadflyonthewallblog:

Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform

In Mexico, you can be killed for being a teacher.

Correction: you can be killed for being a teacher who opens her mouth and speaks her mind.

You can be killed, kidnapped, imprisoned – disappeared.

That’s what happened to approximately six people a week ago at a protest conducted by a teachers union in the southern state of Oaxaca.

The six (some of whom were teachers) were gunned down by police and as many as 100 more people were injured near the town of Nochixtlan, about 50 miles northwest of Oaxaca City.

Conflict between teachers and governments has become commonplace across the globe as austerity and neoliberalism have become the policies du jour. Tax cuts for the rich lead to shrinking public services. And investment in the next generation through public education becomes a thing of the past.

Even here in the United States, educators are taking to the streets to protest a system that refuses to help students – especially poor and minority students – while blaming all deficiencies on one of the only groups that actually show up to help: teachers.

Though in America educators have been ignored, unjustly fired and even arrested for such protests, the Mexican government has resorted to all out murder.

How did it come to this? Follow the trail backwards to its source.

The activists in Oaxaca were protesting because several union officials had been Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform | gadflyonthewallblog:

Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse

Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse:

Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse

Words can be used to show the same disrespect as a literal slap in the face, or worse.

As a writer, I know that all too well.

But what I can’t figure out, for the life of me, is why Republicans in the Michigan Legislature and the highly financed charter school lobby feel compelled to use the most insulting language to describe the recasting of public education here in Detroit. It has become so common that even press reports now refer to the legislation as a bailout.

Though, I’m pretty sure it boils down to two things: privilege and manipulation.

Why else, for instance, is the package of bills signed by the governor last week still being referred to as a bailout — as if the money included to retire public school debts were some sort of gift to rash, harebrained Detroiters?

The truth is that the vast majority of the debt being relieved — hundreds of millions of dollars — was racked up while the state was supposed to be righting the school district’s financial ship.

And to boot, it’s operating debt — short-term bonds sold to fill year-to-year budget holes.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

In Michigan, it's not just Detroit schools that are in trouble

Ostensibly, the very point of state intervention in the Detroit Public Schools, indeed the very reason our constitution gives the state ultimate authority over local governance, was to make things better. To balance the district’s books. To stabilize the population. To increase quality outcomes.

And I’m someone who fully understands how desperate that need has been in Detroit for a long time. I covered the public schools in Detroit back in the mid-1990s, back before anyone would dare raise a peep about state intervention, and I wrote no small number of stories about the gawking, lousy outcomes, the shameless corruption and the deep resistance to change.

But of course, the ostensible promises of a better future with state management never came to pass, for many reasons. And the end result, after nearly 17 years of in-and-out state oversight, was a fresh mound of debt tearing away at the funds that are supposed to go toward actually educating students.

And it’s not just that the state was responsible on the front end for that debt. As with all debt incurred by school districts in the state of Michigan, this borrowing would have been the state’s responsibility on the back end, too. In fact, had the Legislature not decided to pay it now, and the district fallen into default, the cost to the state would have been more by orders of magnitude.

So calling this a bailout of Detroit serves only to inflate the false sense of privilege that folks in other school districts (and many of their Lansing representatives) often express when they talk about the city, its problems, and how they connect to everyone else in the state.

And it’s an attempt to manipulate the conversation, to say that those of us in the city should somehow be thankful that this was done, rather than relieved that the state decided to clean up its own mess.

It’s not the only example.

Gov. Rick Snyder crows about the legislation’s provision to bring back the elected school board as if it’s a favor. But again, the whole point of state intervention is to be temporary and to provide a stable foundation for the return of elected governance. Talking about it in magnanimous terms pushes the privileged idea that, somehow, Detroiters deserve less than what all other Michiganders have.

I’ve also, over the years, been a harsh critic of Detroit’s elected school board. When I covered the district in the mid-1990s, I wrote about board members paying for Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse:

 

Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school - Business Insider

Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school - Business Insider:

Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school

San Francisco in the twenty-first century is the town that STEM built.

A city increasingly synonymous with startup culture and tech-centric innovation, its rapidly growing economy speaks to the value of studying science and mathematics.

Which is why it came as a surprise when the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)-the central office of which occupies the same rarified square mile as the corporate HQs of Twitter, Uber, and Square-announced in 2014 that it would no longer offer Algebra I to eighth graders.

Instead, under the district's new mathematical course sequence, students would not be introduced to the joys of polynomials until high school.

Scale back math education in San Francisco? Why not cut Bible study at the Vatican while we're at it?

Such was the tenor of the response from irate parents who took to local radio and social mediato voice their disapproval. Under the city's previous standards, precociously numerate middle schoolers had been allowed to skip ahead to Algebra or Geometry.

While SFUSD insists that its new approach does not compromise the rigor of its education, but ensures that all students enter high school with the same mathematical foundation, many parents see the district's new standards as a dumbing down of the curriculum. As one angry commenter asked on an online petition website: " All the talk about American kids being behind in math and science, and now SFUSD makes a move to keep the most advanced math students from making progress?"

The battle over eighth grade algebra playing out in San Francisco is neither isolated nor new. Education experts have long considered Algebra a "gatekeeper" course that divides the more advanced mathematics of the college-bound set from the no-frills, computational arithmetic of general math.

The question of whether students should be ushered through that gate in the eighth or the ninth grade may seem like a small one, but it touches on a fundamental question in education policy: should schools push over-achievers ahead if that means leaving some students behind?

Algebra: "The New Civil Right"

It is telling that one of the first people to push for universal enrollment in algebra was a Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school - Business Insider: