Winner of NEPC's 2016 Bunkum Award | National Education Policy Center

Bunkum Awards | National Education Policy Center:

Winner of NEPC's 2016 Bunkum Award

The Bunkum Awards highlight nonsensical, confusing, and disingenuous education reports produced by think tanks. They are given each year by the Think Twice Think Tank review project to think tank reports judged to have most egregiously undermined informed discussion and sound policy making.

Bunkum Background

According to the MacMillan English Dictionary Magazine, the word bunkum became synonymous with "nonsense" around 1820.  It was originally spelled "buncombe," after Buncombe County, North Carolina, home of Representative Felix Walker, who delivered a seemingly endless speech which many in his audience felt to be meaningless and irrelevant.  Walker refused to stop talking, declaring himself to be determined to deliver a speech "for Buncombe."  Thus, bunkum became a term for long-winded nonsense of the kind often seen in politics, and from there progressed to the more general meaning of just plain "nonsense."

Learn more about the history of the Bunkum Awards by reading these Education Week Commentaries:

• Truthiness in Education: Why the Bunkum Awards Were Created
• The Privatization Infatuation

Bunkum Awards | National Education Policy Center:



Winner of NEPC's 2016 Bunkum Award | Benzinga - https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/17/02/p9089096/winner-of-nepcs-2016-bunkum-award

To help the public determine which elements of think tank reports are based on sound social science, NEPC's "Think Twice" Think Tank Review Project has, every year since 2006, asked independent experts to assess strengths and weaknesses of reports published by think tanks.

Few of the think tank reports have been found by experts to be sound and useful; most, however, are found to have little, if any, scientific merit. At the end of each year NEPC editors sift through the reviewed reports to identify the worst offender. We then award the organization publishing that report NEPC's Bunkum Award for shoddy research.

Find Documents: 
Press Release: http://nepc.info/node/8504 
NEPC Review: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-CAP-standards

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) Think Twice Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org) provides the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu 

Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog

Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Betsy DeVos is in charge of a system that literally serves millions of free lunches. She opened remarks to the ultra-conservative CPAC on Thursday with a joke about free lunch.

Betsy DeVos Means It!

Andy Martino

Feb—24—2017 02:11PM EST

The new secretary of education stepped to the mic at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, and warmed up the crowd with a joke that played well in that particular room.

“I’m Betsy DeVos,” the secretary, who arrived at the job with no experience in the public school system, said. “You may have heard some of the wonderful things the mainstream media has called me lately. I, however, pride myself on being called a mother, a grandmother, a life partner, and perhaps the first person to tell Bernie Sanders to his face that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Hahaha, Bernie Sanders. Whatever on that. It’s a speech at CPAC, where he’s an obvious target, and this was an apparent reference to DeVos’ back-and-forth with Sanders during her confirmation hearing last month. And maybe DeVos just didn’t consider the impact of the phrase “free lunch” in the context of her new job. But here’s the problem: She’s now in charge of a school system that serves free and subsidized lunches to more than 30 million students every day. While the Department of Agriculture actually pays for this program, DeVos’ tone-deaf joke made her appear oblivious to the fact that free school lunches are often the only thing that keep many low-income kids from going hungry.

According to government statistics, 15.8 million, or 12.5 percent, of U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2015, meaning they were unable to acquire enough food to meet the needs of all family members. Multiple studies have shown that hungry children struggle in school, with demonstrably lower math scores, and a greater likelihood of having to repeat a grade.

I spent three years teaching in a public middle and high school in Brooklyn, and saw this play out on a human level: If a kid eats, he or she has a chance to be engaged in class. If a kid is hungry, he or she will probably stumble through the day, a weak and grumpy zombie, head down on desk, no chance to learn.

But as LeVar Burton would say, don’t take my word for it. Here are some facts that might help the billionaire secretary realize that there is, in fact, such a thing as a free lunch, and it’s important.

The National School Lunch Act came into being in 1946,Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

 

Schools Matter: GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp

Schools Matter: GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp:

GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp

DeVos confirmed. NPE will fight her agenda.

After Obama brought Arne Duncan to DC to replace the toxic Margaret Spellings as Secretary of Education, a howl went up from racist states rights advocates against any kind federal intervention in education.

The whining and yipping continued, in fact, until Lamar Alexander and the Clintons came up with a plan to replace NCLB with a states rights version of ESEA that was labeled ESSA. ESSA left in place the annual testing empire, neutralized the role of the Secretary of Education, and gave the states rights advocates greater control of federal education dollars.

ESSA is chocked full of charter school stimulus provisions and incentives for more depersonalized computer screen time for kids that, in good Orwellian fashion, is known as "personalized" learning.

With continuing provisions in ESSA to incentivize annual conversions of the poorest and poorest-scoring five percent of schools, everyone at the RNC and DNC expected the gradualist approach to school privatization to rock along until all poor black and brown children were once again entirely segregated, this time in corporate welfare charters free to impose dehumanizing, paternalistic cultural sterilization methods that public schools with public oversight could never condone.

Even though the Alexander/Clinton plan became law, it could be interrupted by the election of insane clown, Donald Trump, who has his own privatization agenda that replaces DNC gradualism with undisguised Bannonist blitzkrieg.

Less than a week after the Trump inauguration, Steve King introduced H.R. 610 in the House, which replaces ESSA with Schools Matter: GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION - WI: State Superintendent Vs. Voucher$ + Deserving

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

WI: State Superintendent Vs. Voucher$

10by Peter Greene / 4h

On April 4, two former school superintendents will square off for the state superintendent spot . The shape of that race tells us a lot about what the new politics-as-usual will look like in the years ahead. Wisconsin state animal. She is not rich, either. In one corner, we find Tony Evers . Evers has been the state superintendent of public instruction since 2009; before that he was deputy superin

YESTERDAY

Deserving

22by Peter Greene / 22h

One of my regular reads is Blue Cereal Education, a blog that regularly makes me say, "Gee, I wish I'd written that." Just this week, the post " It's Not About Them (It's About Us )" gave me both that feeling and a wave of flashbacks to when my children were young. The point is deceptively simple-- we should treat people based on our understanding of the right way to treat people, not based on wha

FEB 23

DeVos Folds

78by Peter Greene / 2d

It was pretty much zero surprise that the Trump administration chose to undo the Obama protections for transgender students (despite his vociferous campaign assertion that he would be a far better friend to LGBT folks than Clinton). Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldT

FEB 22

The Decline of Accountability

48by Peter Greene / 2d

It was just a few years ago that outcomes were all the rage with the reform crowd. The problem with public schools, they said, was that we focus too much on inputs. Outfits like the Rand Corporation produced big reports on giving more weight to outputs. Or here's a paper by Mike Petrilli (Fordham Foundation) telling the state of Wisconsin how to look at those all-important outputs for quality cont

The Lessons of Fordlandia

16by Peter Greene / 2d

This week in the New York Times, Simon Romero took a fascinating visit (with photos) to one of Henry Ford's most monumental failures. It's reminder that billionaires who want to remake the world in their own preferred image are nothing new-- and their failures frequently come back to the same old lessons. In the 1920s, Fordlandia was going to be Ford's solution to several problems. It would help b

FEB 21

Free Market vs. The Poor

40by Peter Greene / 3d

Some people just aren't worth the trouble and expense. That's the underlying message that comes through repeatedly as GOP legislators across the country line up to cut the foundations out from under public education and the ACA. Sometimes they're pretty transparent about it. Pat Toomey just compared sick people to burned out houses to make the point that it's just unfair to ask insurers to cover t

FEB 20

Barber: Let It All Burn

21by Peter Greene / 4d

On Valentine's Day, Sir Michael Barber (the head education honcho at Pearson) took to the74 to offer a rather odd and ultimately confused metaphor for education reform by walking us through the story of St. Paul's Cathedral . It's the test from his speech at the 2016 Global Google Education Symposium. Yikes. The problem, he asserts, began with the construction of the original St. Paul's, a classi

FEB 19

Toomey Doesn't Get It

76by Peter Greene / 6d

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey's office was one that was bombarded with phone calls, faxes, texts, tweets, emails, and messages strapped to the backs of delivery hamsters during the run up to the Betsy DeVos confirmation. At one point he was targeted as one of the GOP senators who might change his mind, which struck me as odd because I've met Toomey and heard him talk about school choice and I do

ICYMI: Extra Homework Edition (2/19)

7by Peter Greene / 6d

It's a big list this week. As always, remember to share, pass on, and amplify what speaks to you and provide that writer with a wider audience. Betsy DeVos Broke the Ed Reform Coalition-- For Now Daniel Katz with a good historical overview of how we ended up where we are in the ed debates, and what a DeVos ed department means to reformsters. Stop Learning To Read From Blue Cereal Education, a refl

FEB 18

Evidence

28by Peter Greene / 6d

This work is Romantic because the author used lots of Romantic ideas, and the characters behave in a Romantic way that captures just how very extremely Romantic the work really is. The author has really infused Romanticism into the whole writing in a way that makes in undeniably Romantic. Welcome to my world. While this is not a direct quote of an actual student essay, it's of a type that English

FEB 17

PA Senate Ed Chair Wants To Trash Education

200+by Peter Greene / 7d

John Eichelberger has been a Pennsylvania state senator for over a decade, and during those years, he has been no friend to public schools or the teachers who work in them. Seriously-- this is District 30. Eichelberger is a Republican upstart who was swept into office on the wave of voter anger over the infamous late-night pay raise of 2005 . He was supported by an assortment of conservatives incl

PA: How Much Does Your District Pay in Charter Costs

73by Peter Greene / 7d

An extremely handy spread sheet has been circulating lately, and if nothing else, I want to put a link here so that I can more easily find it. If you're in Pennsylvania, you'll want to look at this, too. Yes, 502 districts is a lot. The 

CURMUDGUCATION:

The disaster plan. Illinois’ teacher evaluation. | Fred Klonsky

The disaster plan. Illinois’ teacher evaluation. | Fred Klonsky:

The disaster plan. Illinois’ teacher evaluation.

-By Mark Stefanik

Having just experienced the new teacher evaluation process in my district, I’ve had my fears confirmed.  It is a coercive instrument whose first purpose is not to improve teachers, but to control them.  It is a negative metric which creates and seeks flaws. It is a checklist for ‘Wuzza’ teachers who have mutated into administrative hacks. It is a template for mediocrity.

Under the grand banner of improving public education, the pinky-ringed wizards of Springfield enacted a law that turned an essential truth – that teachers are the most important element in schooling – on its head.  If there’s something wrong with schools,  there must be something wrong with teachers.  Put another way, a simpleton’s syllogism swayed the sages of the statehouse:

There are problems with public education.

Teachers are the most important element in schools.

Therefore, there are problems with teachers.

Oh, the ideas that this bit of reckless reasoning inspired.  Oh, the strange bedfellows it rallied.  Billionaire dilettantes linked arms with working class mothers.  Tax policy conservatives swayed PTA parents into charter school advocates.  Union bashers recruited the voiceless and disenfranchised, the very folks that unions protected.

Forget inadequate funding.  Forget socio-economic factors.  Forget prejudice.  Ignorance and Want gave the politicos an early Christmas present.  A consensus swept the land.  Fix the teachers and we fix our schools. 

And so, in 2011, SB7 was born.  It went right to the heart of the teacher problem.  

We’ll make teachers better by diminishing their rights and protections, and, it only follows, that this will improve the classrooms. Which will improve our kids.  Which will The disaster plan. Illinois’ teacher evaluation. | Fred Klonsky:

Let’s Plan A Unit! (Peter ​Anderson) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Let’s Plan A Unit! (Peter ​Anderson) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Let’s Plan A Unit! (Peter ​Anderson)

For policymakers, journalists, parents, and pundits a daily lesson is easy to understand. The teacher has a 45- to 90-minute period and covers certain content and skills. There are objectives and activities that unfold before an observer’s eyes. There is a beginning, middle,and end of a lesson that a typical observer–who had once been a child and youth sitting a few feet away from his or her teacher–can parse easily enough.

But not a unit. A unit is a collection of lessons lasting one to four or more weeks that has overall goals and an arsenal of activities. The various lessons connect daily objectives and tasks to unit goals. Few policymakers, school reformers, parents, and journalists have a sense of how much planning occurs before a teacher crosses the threshold of her classroom to introduce a new unit to her charges. Searching for resources, constructing engaging activities, getting feedback from students, assessing what students learn, all of these soak up a large chunk of a teacher’s time before, after school,at nights and during holidays. Here is one teacher’s description of a unit he created for his middle school students.

Peter Anderson teaches 7th grade English Language Arts in Northern Virginia. He is a National Writing Project teacher-Let’s Plan A Unit! (Peter ​Anderson) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: