Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, April 28, 2019

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION


Charter Lessons From Democracy Prep

I was as unimpressed as anyone when education privatization fan Campbell Brown launched the 74 site as a platform for the same old "Charters schools rule, public schools drool" song and dance. But since that launch, and particularly since Brown stepped away from the site, the straight journalism side of the operation has done some commendable work (though the propaganda side is still frying up its

APR 26

Another Free Market Lesson

Even as Florida continues its race to become the first state to completely do away with public education and replace it with a free market free for all, lessons abound in why that's a lousy idea. This frickin ' guy. At Tarbell, Simon Davis-Cohen takes us on a trip to I owa where an ALEC governor privatized Medicaid. Former governor Terry Branstad was a founding member of the American Legislative E

APR 25

Is AI A Game-Changer For Education (International Edition)?

Sometimes it's informative to see how some of this stuff is playing out in other settings. A post on Entrepreneur India makes the claim that " Artificial Intelligence Can be a Game-Changer for Education, Here are 5 Reasons Why " and its five arguments are, well, intriguing. The post is from Vishal Meena from the start-up MadGuy Labs , an Indian on-line test prep company that promises to prep you f

APR 24

Using Cultural Competency To Sell Personalized [sic] Learning

Over at EdTechTimes, a site that for a consulting group that clearly is interested in pushing personalized [sic] learning, I found a podcast by Mariel Cariker entitled " Cultural Competency: Finding Ways To Bring Equity Through Personalized Learning. " (It is accompanied by a transcript.) The podcast is sponsored by TeachPlus. Like many of the arguments being used to push PL, it's an odd little mi

APR 22

Guest Post: The True Cost of College

I've known Beth Pfohl for years. She was a top student in my Honors English class, and years before that I cast her as Annie in our community theater production. When she was a senior, I installed her as editor of the yearbook. She's an exceptional human being. Beth is currently finishing up her college education at Miami of Ohio, and it is from that vantage point that she wrote the following pos

APR 21

ICYMI: Easter Edition (4/21)

One of my favorite holidays is today, but whether you celebrate or not, here's some reading from the past week to feed your brain. Against Metrics: How measuring performance by numbers backfires . Not directly tied to education (though the subject comes up), this piece takes a look at the problems of people who think numbers are magical. If we don't work on pedagogy, nothing else matters . One of

APR 20

When Local Control Turns Toxic

I am a fan of local control for school districts, but I'm not going to pretend that under the wrong circumstances it won't produce some terrible results. EdBuild has just issued a report on a troubling phenomenon-- the secession of wealthy communities from larger school districts . This issue has been reported on before , but this is a report that collects instances of attempts across the nation.

APR 19

KY: DeVos, Bevin, Loving Vouchers, Hating Teachers

Betsy DeVos took her Education Freedom Voucher Tour to Kentucky, and things went just about as well as you could expect. Secretary of Education DeVos has been crisscrossing the country in an attempt to sell her $5 billion voucher plan . Her latest stop was Kentucky, a state that has achieved a sort of choice limbo ; there's a charter law on the books, but the legislature has so far refused to fund
Creating More Defective Children

This has always been a dangerous side effect of educational certainty. If I'm absolutely certain that my program is awesome, my pedagogy is flawless, my materials are on point, and classroom is just generally perfect-- and yet some students are not learning-- well, there's only one possible explanation. The student must be defective. The defect effect appears to be cropping up in a new place. As r

APR 18

Why DeVos Doesn't Care About Charter Closings

During the recent House hearings, Betsy DeVos was confronted with some of the results of the Network for Public Education study of federal dollars going to charters, a huge number of which have closed or never even opened. She was unmoved : Let me first comment on the study you’re referring to. I’m not sure you can even call it a study. We’re looking more closely at it of course, and anything that

APR 17

The Charter Effect On Teachers

Unions, we have been told, have a deleterious effect on teachers, forcing them to accept lousier deals than they could get in a free market where they each negotiated their own deals. In such a market, schools would compete for teachers, bidding up the salary offers. Teachers could negotiate from a place of strength. No teacher would ever want a union ever gain. I confess that there was a time whe

APR 16

Guns Headed For The Classroom

Of all the bad ideas. I know there are folks who believe in their heart of hearts that arming teachers will make schools safer, or that putting armed police in the building will be helpful. But there are so many bad signs. I want to believe that school resource officers can be helpful. Earlier this month, a school shooting was likely averted just up the road because students at the school felt com


Melinda Gates Achieves Peak Epic Cluelessness

Sigh. Melinda Gates seems like a nice lady who means well, but her recent interview at the New York Times Magazine is a master class in how living in a very wealthy bubble can leave you out of touch with the rest of the world and an understanding of your place in it. It starts in the very first paragraph. “There are absolutely different points of view about philanthropy,” says Melinda Gates, who,

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