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Sunday, January 27, 2019

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Here Comes Another Arctic Blast Edition (1/27)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Here Comes Another Arctic Blast Edition (1/27)

ICYMI: Here Comes Another Arctic Blast Edition (1/27)


 So it's going to get cold again. But in the meantime there are useful things to read about education. Here's the list for this week-- remember to share what you think needs to be shared.

Denver's Portfolio Model School District is a Failure

Thomas Ultican breaks down some of the details in the long-running reform experiment in Denver schools.

Automation at Davos

This is pretty stark stuff. The difference between what the movers and shakers say about AI publicly (It will be great for workers) and what they say privately (We'll be able to fire 99% of our human workforce).

Success Academy: The High School

One would expect Eva's attempt to expand her brand into high school to be ugly and messy, but this podcast with transcript shows just how ugly and messy (spoiler alert: really). Just brace yourself for the whiplash conclusion.

Floridians Choose Public Schools

Breaking down some survey data to see what Floridians would really like.

Under-discussed Stories of 2018

Have You Heard podcast looks at five six stories that didn't quite get the attention they deserved. (There's a transcript if you aren't a podcast person).

Houses for People

Teacher Tom provides his littles a lesson in activism.

MLK's Work Precedes Us And, With Resilience, Lives After

Jose Luis Vilson and a wake up call for what MLK's legacy is about beyond pretty memes.

How Do Charter Schools Affect Students With Special Needs?

From the LAUSD strike comes this set of word delivered to the board about some of the charter claims that just don't hold up.



CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Here Comes Another Arctic Blast Edition (1/27)



CURMUDGUCATION POSTS THIS WEEK



Is Competency The Hot New Thing?

by Peter Greene / 15h
Tom Vander Ark thinks that competency is the up-and-coming next big thing in education. He just said so a few weeks ago at Forbes , but he's been saying so for several years now . Vander Ark has been at the education reform biz longer than most, but his career also includes the launch of K-Mart's competitor to Sam's Club, point man for the Gates small schools initiative , and an attempt to launch
OK Legislator To Teachers: Shut The Hell Up

by Peter Greene / 18h
Oklahoma has worked hard to get itself in the front of the pack of States Most Hostile To Public Education. Maybe not number one (relax, Florida), but right up there. Ultra-low teacher pay. Slack charter rules . The kind of state where the idea for improving education is to gear it more toward providing meat widgets for employers. The kind of state where a serious idea about improving teacher pay

JAN 25

WV: Legislative Extortion

by Peter Greene / 1d
Last spring, West Virginia's teachers stood up and stood up loud, shutting down every single school in the state. They were out with five demands -- better wages, health insurance, defeating an expansion of charter schools, keeping seniority, and killing a "paycheck protection" bill. They won, the governor signed a pay raise , and teachers won the right to shout at the end , "Who made history? We
DeVos Has A Hammer

by Peter Greene / 2d
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been busy lately, making actual somewhat-public appearances and talking about all her favorites subjects. Thursday it was the 87th annual United States Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting, and her remarks included many of her favorite points. But she's not just beating a drum; she's working with a big, heavy hammer. Bang bang bang. Here are some highlights: D

JAN 24

Classroom Practice Ideas For Reformsters

by Peter Greene / 2d
So while I was working on my last post , I came across this post by Robert Pondiscio that makes a good companion piece. It's a post you might well miss; if you're a regular reader here, you may not check the Fordham Think-Tank Reform Advocacy Blog often. But Pondiscio and I really disagree about some things and really agree about some others, so I pay attention. I give Pondisc io credit for kickin
The Trouble With Evidence

by Peter Greene / 3d
So now some voices are calling for an emphasis on evidence-based practices in classrooms, and I don't disagree. Evidence-based is certainly better than intuition-based or wild-guess-based or some-guy-from-the-textbook-company-told-us-to-do-this based. But before we get all excited about jumping on this bus, I think we need to think about our evidence bricks before we start trying to build an entir

JAN 22

My Support for Charter Schools

by Peter Greene / 5d
In the last few weeks, I've been tagged once again as someone who will never support charter schools no matter what. This is not accurate, and School Choice Week seems like the perfect time to once again explain when I do, in fact, support charter schools ( here I am talking about one that I think is just fine ). These are the characteristics that need to be in place. Financial Honesty Virtually a

JAN 21

FL: Guns in Schools Not Going So Well

by Peter Greene / 6d
After the murder of seventeen people at Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High in Florida, the state legislature of the gun-happy sunshine state finally considered putting some common sense restrictions on guns and ammo in the state. No, just fake newsing you-- what they did was decide they'd better arm more people in schools, because the only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a gunfight in a building

JAN 20

Arne Duncan Keeps Trying To Explain Education

by Peter Greene / 6d
Arne Duncan's signature achievement as secretary of education was getting a divided Congress to come together in order to finally pass a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Previously known as No Child Left Behind, the new version of the act (Every Student Succeeds Act) was notable for how it spanked the secretary and his department and focused on returning authority to
ICYMI: Too Much Snow Edition (1/20)

by Peter Greene / 7d
While you're waiting to dig out (or feeling clever because you live somewhere where you don't have to), here are some pieces from the week for your reading. Remember to share. Only you can amplify writer voices. These Students Walked Onto Westminster Campus And Into History Another chapter from the history of integration in the US. Five Years After Common Core A Mysterious Spike In Failure Rate Am

JAN 19

Why TFA Doesn't Get More Edu-respect

by Peter Greene / 7d
The title of the article is "I Switched Jobs 4 Times--Each With A $20,000 Bump. " It is part of the series "My 6-Figure Paycheck." This article is a quick interview with a Head of Talent Acquisition in San Francisco who currently makes $117,000 for a salary. She went to UC Berkeley for poli sci and then picked up a masters in project management from Northeastern, and her interview includes this pa
US Teens At Their Worst

by Peter Greene / 7d
This is one of the more upsetting things I've seen in a while. This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protestor at the Indigenous Peoples March. pic.twitter.com/jIb5K68vIs — Talia (@2020fight) January 19, 2019 From other angles, it only gets worse It’s even worse when you see the full mob effect. pic.twitter.com/Oe7Zn5srOB — Lulu Says (@lulu_says2) January 19, 2019 And here's a desc

JAN 18

DeVos Offers Advice From Within The Bubble

by Peter Greene / 8d
Betsy Devos is rich. She was born rich, married rich, and barring any French Revolution style upheaval, she will die rich. This does not automatically make her evil, but it does make her susceptible to life in a bubble-- particularly since she never created nor ran any of the businesses that made her wealthy. And it's important to remember all this when she starts waxing rhapsodic about the lesson

JAN 17

If You Care About Early Childhood Education

by Peter Greene / 9d
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I have concerns about the current direction of education for the littles. These are not strictly academic concerns-- between. children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, there are seven members of my family in the under-five age bracket. So I am happy to see this announcement in my in-box from Defending the Early Years: DEY is excited to announce
Oh, Arne.

by Peter Greene / 9d
Arne Duncan is always talking and it's never good. Let's take a look at two recent batches of word salad thrown up by the former secretary of education and current ed reform gun-for-hire. Earlier this month the Duncanator was the keynote speaker at Morgan Park High School' s career day in Chicago. The appearance would have been unexceptional had Duncan not spelled out in perhaps the starkest terms

JAN 16

FL: The Unsurprising Teacher "Shortage"

by Peter Greene / 10d
The Florida Department of Education has released a report on teacher shortages in the state , for the 2019-2019 school year, and the news is not great. The news is not just that there's a shortage (t hat's old new s), but that Florida deals with the shortages by filling classrooms with teachers uncertified for the subject. The news is also in where the shortages are being felt. It's not unusual to

JAN 15

Jeanne Allen on LAUSD: Fire Them All

by Peter Greene / 12d
The Center for Education Reform is a charter advocacy group whose most visible feature is Jeanne Allen, CEO and sometimes President of a board that includes pioneering privatize Chris Whittle. Allen loves charters and hates teachers unions. As you might guess, she has some thoughts about the LA teacher strike. After I wrote about the strike at Forbes.com, the Pinkston Group , a PR fit, shared some

JAN 14

SAT: New Frontiers In Pointlessness

by Peter Greene / 13d
David Coleman, he who single-handedly built the architecture of Common Core ELA in the image of his own (untrained) biases about how language should be taught, is taking a step back from some of his College Board duties. That news has been accompanied by further evidence that the SAT is increasingly pointless. Like most of the CC architects, isn't stick around to make sure his baby was properly in

JAN 13

ICYMI: Jazz In Church Edition (1/13)

by Peter Greene / 13d
Today was m day to visit my brother's church to play some jazz versions of old hymns. Fun times, but it ace for a full family day. Nevertheless, I have some reading for you from the week. Remember-- if you think it's a good one, share it and amplify the voice. Charter Lobby Still Spending Money in Connecticut Wendy Lecker lays out the ways in which the usual charter lobbyists are still plying thei

JAN 12

Four Reasons Charters Are A Bad Fit For Rural Communities

by Peter Greene / 14d
For just a moment, I'm going to set aside the larger problems of charters and privatization nationally. Charter advocates and education reformers have recently turned their attention to rural communities. Last summer, Mike Petrilli (Fordham Institute) unleashed one of his wide-release op-eds to point out the "problem" of "charter deserts" --those markets where charter schools have made few inroad

JAN 11



Why The Reading Wars Will Never End

by Peter Greene / 15d
I made the mistake of tossing a comment into the middle of a twitter thread on Monday. Not a nice quiet subject like vaccinations or abortion or Trump's wall, but reading. As soon as it became apparent that thread would blow up and 
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