Sunday, April 18, 2021

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Taxes Are Done Edition (4/18)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Taxes Are Done Edition (4/18)



Taxes Are Done Edition

Yes, we all got extensions, but I'd rather have them done and gone, and this was a pretty easy year. Now we can move on to other swell things. In the meantime, let me remind you that you, too, can amplify voices in cyberspace. If your thought is "Hey, people should read this," well, then, you know people. Send them some this to read.


My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share

Russ Walsh doesn't blog enough these days, but when he does, it's choice. This is some nice, simple advice for dealing with the dreaded Learning Loss, rooted in the actual world that real human beings live in.

Former lobbyist details how privatizers are trying to end public education

Over at Valerie Strauss's education column for the Washington Post, Carol Burris is interviewing Charles Siler, former lobbyist and PR flack for the Goldwater Institute, and he has some observations about what, for some on the right, education reform is really all about.


I'm not always a fan of Hooked On Innovation, but this particular post is a nice example of how to view the dreaded LL a little differently. 


The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has been looking at the latest edition of the education department's covid handbook, and she found that  "stabilizing" the educator workforce is one of their goals. How, she wonders, does that fit with their devotion to the Big Standardized Test?


Trick question because, as authors Derek Black and Rebecca Holcombe note, it's already happening in Florida. But with plenty of choice bills across the country, is it about to get much worse?


Just in case you needed it, Matt Barnum is at Chalkbeat with some research to underline the obvious--crappy school buildings stand in the way of student learning.


At NC Policy Watch, Rev. Suzanne Parker argues that the plan to expand the voucher program is a bad idea and a flawed plan.


Well, in PA, where private Catholic schools are consistently sports powerhouses, we could have told you. One side effect of a school choice system is going to be schools that recruit, build the school around the sports program, and destroy the public school sports system. In North Carolina, some legislators are starting to catch on.


The charter group keeps spending way more than the state allows for administrative costs, and not always doing a great job of reporting, either.  Example #423,177 of How Charter Operators Get Rich.


This is, of course, always the plan. Kick off your voucher program by selling how it will help the poor and the specially needy, then once it's set up, just start cranking the limits. So here comes Indiana with a shot at giving six figured families little rebate on their education expenses


Nick Morrison at Forbes.com shows that the surveillance state hasn't done much to stop old big problems, but it turns out to be a great tool for busting students for every damn piddly thing that can be caught on camera.


Jan Resseger offers a good compendium of all the ways the secretary's stances on the Big Standardized Tests have not exactly calmed the waters.


At Ed Week, Rick Hess interviews Sam Wineburg, a Stanford professor who's doing some great work in teaching folks how to evaluate websites. Cool stuff, and while you, as a reader of this blog, are undoubtedly wise enough to stay unfooled, this could be useful for your friends and students.


The headline here in the Philadelphia Inquirer is that Philly schools lose more money to tax breaks than any other district in the country. That points us to a study that shows school districts lost $2.37 billion in 2019 to tax subsidies.



A Search For Common Ground: A Worthwhile Conversation About Education - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/04/13/a-search-for-common-ground-a-worthwhile-conversation-about-education/?sh=6ce8294a4333 by @palan57 on @forbes


Why Standardized Tests Won’t Measure What Students Learned During The Pandemic - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/04/10/why-standardized-tests-wont-measure-what-students-learned-during-the-pandeimc/?sh=50883b3b22cd by @palan57 on @forbes




ICYMI: Taxes Are Done Edition (4/18)
Yes, we all got extensions, but I'd rather have them done and gone, and this was a pretty easy year. Now we can move on to other swell things. In the meantime, let me remind you that you, too, can amplify voices in cyberspace. If your thought is "Hey, people should read this," well, then, you know people. Send them some this to read. My Learning Loss Formula: Read, Write, Share Russ Walsh doesn't
New Anglo-Saxon Caucus Has Some Education Thoughts. They Are As Bad As The Rest Of This Damn Fool Platform.
So, led by a team-up of House of Representative winners from Georgia and Arizona, there is now a White Racist Nativist America First Caucus that swears to "follow in President Trump's footsteps and potentially step on toes and sacrifice sacred cows for the good of the American nation" as well as calling for "common respect for the uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions." It's as awful as it is
What Happens To Students That Charters Don't Want? (The Chester Upland Saga Continues)
In Chester Upland School District, the process of selling off the district schools to charter operators has continued (for a deeper dive into CUSD's troubled history, read here ). Three charter operators have made their bids , and we'll take a closer look at that another day. It's all pretty sad and ugly. But there's another troubling aspect to the dismantling of Chester Upland schools. The three
Success Academy Lost $2.4 Million Judgment
You might have caught this story, but I don't want you to miss it. Success Academy has long been one of the stars of the charter school world. But in 2015, Kate Taylor at the New York Times reported on a secret "got to go" list that targeted students that SA administrators wanted to push out, part of a general pattern of deliberately making life difficult for students that the schools simply didn
SC: Lawsuit Looks For Public Dollar Pay Day For Catholic Schools
In South Carolina, a lawsuit filed this week seeks to obliterate the wall between church and state. Like most such lawsuits, the federal lawsuit has been a advocacy group that specializes in such things-- you may remember the Liberty Justice Center as the folks who won the Janus case, which either was an attack on unions wrapped in the First Amendment. As with most such cases, the advocacy group
Don't Forget--No Nation's Report Card NAEP Test This Year
You may have forgotten, or just not noticed at the time, but I want to remind you that last November, the National Center for Education Statistics pulled the plug on the 2021 NAEP , the Big Standardized Test that is supposed to measure the nation's progress in math and reading. Betsy DeVos asked for cancellation. The National Assessment Governing Board, chaired by Haley Barbour agreed with it . T
When Bill Gates Shows You Who He Is...
This recent article from the New Republic is a bit of a slog if you have not become a student of the various attempts to create covid vaccines, treatments, etc. But it hinges on two factors that matter a great deal in education-- intellectual property and Bill Gates. It comes, coincidentally, right around the 68th anniversary of Jonas Salk's creation of the polio vaccine , a hugely valuable piece
ICYMI: Spring Might Be Here Edition (4/11)
It's not really spring in Northwest PA until it snows one more time. But it certainly is pleasant right now. So that's something. Let's see what we have to read this week Acceleration Nation Nancy Flanagan has noticed that acceleration is having a moment, and she has some thoughts about those shenanigans. Taking the SAT with the Breakout Expert from Operation Varsity Blues John Warner took the SA