CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Ice Edition (2/9)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Ice Edition (2/9)

Ice Edition (2/9)

It's the weekend of our b ig ice carving festival here in town, and the weather is perfect. There are cool sculptures to see, and it's the perfect festival for people who don't like crowds because nobody wants to stand around in the cold. And the Board of Directors has a lovely time.

In the meantime, here is some reading from the week.

Nashville Art School Will Purge Non-Christian Faculty
A religious university took over the school; now to root out all those non-believers.

Agassi scores again with $61 million charter school sale
A reminder that for some folks, the charter biz is just about making in real estate. Just like flipping houses, only more profitable.

He stood up against a school takeover. The Democratic Party threw him out.
From Rochester, a reminder that plenty of Dems are not the friends of public education.

Top-down teacher evaluation models are flawed.
I don't know that I agree with all of this, but I'll pass it along for this one line: "most of the time teachers are on their own. Most of the improvements they generate emanate from their own self-evaluation. By miles."

Learning "useless" things in school is (usually) not useless.
Learning Scientists with a great explanation of why not everything in school is about some obviously utilitarian purpose.

Dress codes are the new "whites only" signs.
Andre Perry at Hechinger Report responds to the latest round of racist-as-hell moves by schools to enforce dress and hair codes.

Bradenton school refuses "homosexual" parents
News continues to roll in from Florida, where the legislature is committed to spending pulic tax dollars on schools that discriminate against LGBTQ folks.

Schools trial body cameras
In England, another creepy leap forward for the surveillance state-- body cameras on teachers. Great. Just great.

Dallas and Tulsa: A Tale of two blockchains
Wrench in the Gears travels to Dallas and Tulsa and lays out some more bout the world of human capital investment. With many useful charts.

A Room Is Enough
One of those great moments in teaching, courtesy of the JLV.

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What Charter Advocates Want From States

57by Peter Greene / 18h

What exactly would charter proponents like to see in state charter regulations? As it turns out, we don't have to guess, because the National Alliance of Public [sic] Charter Schools regularly publishes a ranking of the states based on the "strength" of their charter laws. This year's edition is the 11th, and it's available right now ! Woot! If you are concerned about the rankings, I can give you

FEB 06

PA: DeVos Stumps For Trump, Masters Lying

98by Peter Greene / 2d

So this is apparently the school choice lie that Trumpists are going to lean on: “They want government control of everything — your health care, your wallet, your child’s education,” DeVos said. Democrats “want complete control over where, how, and what American students learn,” she said. “ They want to close every charter school , take away every educational option from low-income families, limit

NY: Police State High School Is On Line

by Peter Greene / 2d

A while back, I wrote about Lockport, NY, where for some damn reason, school officials had decided that what the district really needed was facial recognition software watching the students . As with most expansions of the surveillance state, the excuse was the ol d "This is for your own good." Facial recognition and tracking software will add an unprecedented level of security at the schools. Dis

FEB 05

Eli Broad Goes To Yale

24by Peter Greene / 3d

This ran over at Forbes back in early December, and in the Christmas rush I just forgot to port it over here to the mother ship for those of you who don't read me at Forbes. So it's not fresh, shiny news-- but it still matters. Billionaire Eli Broad has long worked to impose business solutions on U.S. education, believing that education has a management problem, not an education problem. As one B

FEB 03

USED Pitches Privatization To Wyoming

100+by Peter Greene / 5d

Mitchell Zais , Deputy Secretary of Education, last week visited Wyoming to stump for school choice . He wrote for the Wyoming Parent his version of the department's sales pitch for Betsy DeVos's Education Freedom vouchery program. Wyoming parents (and taxpayers), this is a bit of a snow job. Let me explain. He opens by recognizing that humans are individuals, so that he can say this: So why does

I Shot An Arrow Into The Air

30by Peter Greene / 5d

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; -- " The Arrow and the Song " Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Rick Hess recently wrote an EdWeek post offering f our insights about education policymaking , and as if often the case with Hess, I started to write a reply in the comments section and then it got too long and so here I am. Here's a quick recap of his four ideas-- This might

FEB 02

ICYMI: Sportsball Sunday Edition (2/2)

by Peter Greene / 7d

Human beings are funny creatures. Today we'll celebrate the prognostication of a giant rodent, invest a gazillion dollars in a sportsball contest, and get all excited because our date-labeling system will cough up a palindrome today 

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