Sunday, December 27, 2020

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Christmas Recovery Edition (12/27)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Christmas Recovery Edition (12/27)

Christmas Recovery Edition

We're getting there, and by "there" I mean into whatever future we're about to build in the new year. In the meantime, here's this week's reading list.

The Attack on Dr. Jill Biden Is Cloaked Hatred of Teachers and Public Ed

While folks have been compiling lists if bad Wall Street Journal takes in 2020, the Epstein hit piece is often overlooked--but it was bad. Nancy Bailey pushes back. (Yes, this was only just last week)

SCOTUS Opened the Door for Religious Charter Schools

One more preview of the argument that charter operators will use to cash in now that SCOTUS has signaled its willingness to bat down the church-state wall. It's Newsweek, which is not always a god sign, but the author is a law professor at Notre Dame.

A Teacher's Take on Computerized Reading Tests

Stefanie Fuhr is at the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood explaining why those tests are not a great thing, or even an adequate thing.

Too many parents and decision makers treat teachers like they don't matter

At CNN, Alexandra Robbins argues that teachers need to be more than data points during the pandemic building re-opening debates.

Stop using black children as an excuse to open your schools

AKA "where was al this concern a year ago?" From the Black and Smart blog.

Arizona charter school got a PPP loan, gave $10 million to a shareholder

From the Arizona Republic, via USA Today, a tale of more stimulus loan shenanigans in the education private sector.

Education secretary should curb standardized tests

Andrea Gabor at Bloomberg backing up the argument so many folks are making-- this is a terrible year to insist on the Big Standardized Test

Learning Pods Show Their Cracks

Okay, this is mostly forehead slapping schadenfreude reading from the New York Times, as a bunch of pandemic pod parents discover that setting up a school is, in fact, hard.

The Dark History of School Choice

Diane Ravitch in the New York Review of books takes a look at three books that outline how the school choice movement owes much of its roots and arguments to the U.S. racist past, fueled by a long-time religious crusade against public education.

Where Did Education Fail Us?

As the end of the year approaches, Jose Vilson asks some of the big questions. A thoughtful meditation for a winter eve.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Christmas Recovery Edition (12/27)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE

Why A Classroom Connection Matters For The Department Of Education - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/12/22/why-a-classroom-connection-matters-for-the-department-of-education/?sh=4bf731e21407 by @palan57 on @forbes

Here’s What Needs To Be Done To Rebuild K-12 Education In This Country - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/12/19/heres-what-needs-to-be-done-to-rebuild-k-12-education-in-this-country/?sh=4ff748c83a1c by @palan57 on @forbes

Six Arguments For Giving The Big Standardized Tests This School Year (And Why Biden’s Education Secretary Should Ignore Them) - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/12/15/six-arguments-for-giving-the-big-standardized-tests-this-school-year-and-why-bidens-education-secretary-should-ignore-them/?sh=67c753287b47 by @palan57 on @forbes

No Test In 2021 (A BS Test Reader)

63by Peter Greene / 1d

Among the many things that the new secretary of education really needs to do upon taking office, a big simple one is this--cancel the Big Standardized Test for 2021. I've been banging the "Get Rid of the BS Test" for years, but all the reasons it's a lousy, toxic, destructive-and-not-even-useful force in education are amplified a hundred-fold by our current pandemess. Many wise folks have pointed

Here's Some Merry Christmas Listening For You

by Peter Greene / 2d

I hope that those of you who celebrate the holiday are enjoying it, even in these weird and distant times. May we never have a Christmas celebration like this one ever again. As is tradition here at the institute, I have a collection of seasonal tunes for yoe- actually, a couple, this year. For you youtubers, here's a collection specifically put together without the performances you've been liste

AI, Language, and the Uncanny Valley

21by Peter Greene / 3d

We experience vertigo in the uncanny valley because we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of years fine-tuning our nervous systems to read and respond to the subtlest cues in real faces. We perceive when someone’s eyes squint into a smile, or how their face flushes from the cheeks to the forehead, and we also — at least subconsciously — perceive the absence of these organic barometers. Simulations ma

Nobody Hates Miguel Cardona (So Far)

100+by Peter Greene / 4d

(OF course, I finished this post at about 3:55 PM Eastern time on Tuesday, so there's plenty of time left for folks to crank up the disapproval) So now we know who the new guy is (probably) going to be, and an awful lot of folks are asking who he is and whether we should be delighted or upset or whatever. Diane Ravitch notes that he hasn't taken a position on many of the hot-button issues, like c

ICYMI: Santa's Almost Here (12/20)

by Peter Greene / 7d

And the Board of Directors has just about figured out this Christmas thing and twigged onto the notion that presents are coming (but why not right now). I am going to try not to think constantly about all the family and children and grandchildren that I am not seeing this week, because that sucks. In the meantime, here's some reading from this week. The Logjam that Awaits Biden's education secret

Pennsylvania's Teacher Problem

62by Peter Greene / 7d

We already know that the teaching profession is primarily composed of white women (average age 43). But sometimes, when you break data down in particular ways, it becomes even more striking. Research for Action is a Philly-based group that has done some great work over the years, and they've done some research about the TOC/SOC balance in PA that are featured both in this article from Sojourner A

1776 Commission Members Appointed (And It's About What You'd Expect)

by Peter Greene / 8d

You remember just six 2020 weeks ago (that's roughly a year and a half in regular time), Dear Leader proclaimed that the 1776 Commission would be formed in order to create a more perfect set of teaching stuff that would teach our young people to think about our country in the Correct Way. The proclamation announcing this was a piece of work , among other things laying out how we should teach stud

Children are not our future

31by Peter Greene / 9d

There are plenty of warm fuzzy teacher sayings that I could well do without, emphasizing as they do that teachers are too noble to ever want to do things like, say, insist on being paid a decent wage or have control over their working conditions. But there's a child-focused saying that I would like to banish to the

CURMUDGUCATION - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/

Why Joe Biden's stutter is a gift to America | Salon.com

Why Joe Biden's stutter is a gift to America

A president who thinks before he talks? Bring it on

In the clip, Donald Trump is standing before a throng of his worshippers, musing about character and how it is shaped by circumstances. "Can you imagine if that happened to me?" he asks, throwing out a hypothetical. "Man, would I be a bad guy. I would be the meanest man in history." It is February of 2020, and he is speaking of the man who will defeat him in nine months. "Biden is angry. Biden is angry, everything is anger," Trump continues, adding, "and that's what happens when you can't get the words out. That's what happens when you can't get the words out. You get angry." Donald Trump, who sees himself as a not angry, not bad, not mean individual, is apparently imagining himself here horribly warped by a characteristic the president-elect himself wears with pride: his stutter.

That one of the most important communications positions in the world will soon be held by a man who grew up with a speech disorder is, on the surface, an achievement. It definitely takes some of the air out of the mockery,

misunderstanding and snide derision Biden has endured in past several years, notably from Trump's inner circle. In January, Lara Trump declared that "Every time he comes on stage, I'm like, 'Joe, can you get it out? Let's get the words out, Joe." When confronted about it later on CNN, she did not improve the narrative by insisting that what she meant was that Biden has "very clearly a cognitive decline." Similarly, a year ago, Eric Trump sneered to Fox News that "Biden can't get through two sentences without stuttering." CONTINUE READING: Why Joe Biden's stutter is a gift to America | Salon.com

Wendy Lecker: Two Books That Demonstrate Why Public Education Matters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Wendy Lecker: Two Books That Demonstrate Why Public Education Matters

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights attorney who writes frequently for the Stamford Advocate. In this column, she reviews two important books: One shows how deeply embedded public schools are in our democratic ideology, the other describes that coordinated assault on the very concept of public schooling. The first is low professor Derek Black’s Schoolhouse Burning, the other is A Wolf at the Schoollhouse Door, by journalist Jennifer Berkshire and historian Jack Schneider.

Lecker writes:

In his scrupulously researched book, Derek Black emphasizes that the recognition that education is essential to democracy predated public schools and even the U.S. Constitution. He describes how the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, which applied to 31 future states, mandated funding and land for public schools, declaring that education was “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.” Education was not explicitly included in the U.S. Constitution. However, after the Civil War, the United States required Southern states guarantee a right to education in their state constitutions as a condition for readmission. Northern states followed suit. State education articles CONTINUE READING: Wendy Lecker: Two Books That Demonstrate Why Public Education Matters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Outrunning the Pandemic – Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020 | gadflyonthewallblog

Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020

On most weekends back in the 1980s, you’d probably find me at TILT, the mall’s crowded video game arcade.

When I was about 12 – around ’86 or so – one of my favorite games was “Outrun” by Sega.

Ever play it?

In a cherry red Ferrari convertible with the wind blowing through my virtual hair, I’d race through various summer style environments from beach to forest, to mesa to mountains.

I even got to pick which song to play on the highway – something Latin, Caribbean, or just smooth and easy.

But the real kicker – the thing that really sold this wish fulfillment fantasy – wasn’t CONTINUE READING: Outrunning the Pandemic – Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020 | gadflyonthewallblog

Peter Greene: Phooey to Resuming the Big Standardized Tests | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: Phooey to Resuming the Big Standardized Tests

The “reform” lobby, never content without testing and data, has argued in a host of opinion pieces that children really need to be tested this spring. The reformers believe that school is unthinkable and teachers won’t know what to do without annual standardized testing. They have completely imbibed the Texas Miracle That Wasn’t, the “miracle” that justified No Child Left Behind’s testing mandate. The achievement gaps remain large, with no sign of closing, but facts never got in the way of datamania.

Peter Greene wrote in Forbes in response to the reform clamor for more tests. He specifically responded to Aaron Churchill of the Thomas Fordham Institute, who wrote in the Columbus Dispatch about the importance of giving the annual tests this spring.

How can children possibly be educated if they aren’t taking tests and we don’t have data? If you can’t get enough of Peter Greene on the BS Test, here is more.

Greene rebuts each of six points.

The tests do not collect valuable information. They are CONTINUE READING: Peter Greene: Phooey to Resuming the Big Standardized Tests | Diane Ravitch's blog

My Goals For 2021 | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

MY GOALS FOR 2021

Yesterday, I shared Eight Teaching Concerns I Have Going Into 2021.

I thought it would be a good reflective exercise for me to follow that post with one sharing my goals for the next year, and thought that at least a few readers might find them interesting.

1. Of course, one major goal is that the eight concerns I listed yesterday get prevented, or at least are substantially alleviated. I’m not holding my breath that I bat a thousand, but I hope that the worst case in most don’t come true.

2. In addition to maintaining my own physical and mental health, as I included in my concerns yesterday, I hope that everyone in my family can stay healthy and get vaccinated at the earliest possible opportunity.

3. I also want to make it through the end of the school year with my love for teaching still alive. Of course, during a “normal” school year, that wouldn’t be in question. But I’m sure I’m not alone thinking it might not be a sure thing now.

4. Katie Hull and I should finally finish the second edition of the ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, which will be twice as long as the original. We were first delayed by simultaneously editing three new books in the “Toolbox” series , which came out last spring (pro tip: never agree to edit three books at the same time) and, then, by the professional and personal chaos of the pandemic. Though we have been able to do a little bit of CONTINUE READING: My Goals For 2021 | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_26.html

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

A VERY BUSY DAY Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Pins Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h

I’m fairly active on Pinterest and, in fact, have curated 22,000 resources there that I haven’t shared on this blog. I thought readers might find it useful if I began sharing a handful of my most recent “pins” each week (I’m not sure if you can see them through an RSS Reader – you might have to click through to the original post). You might also be interested in MY MOST POPULAR PINS OF 2020 Here

How Could I Have Not Known How Easy It Is To Use Graphic Organizers In Jamboard?

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h

htuuli / Pixabay I don’t know about you, but using graphic organizers in Google Drive has been a pain-in-the-butt for me. Yes, I know I can create them in Google Drawings, and I have been doing that, but it takes some time. Today, though, I learned a Google Drive trick that rivals MY MIND WAS BLOWN TODAY AFTER LEARNING HOW TO COLLABORATIVELY ANNOTATE PDFS ON GOOGLE DRIVE . I had not realized that

This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Ed Policy Issues

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h

Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in THE BEST ARTICLES, VIDEOS & POSTS ON EDUCATION POLICY IN 2019 – PART TWO ): Public Schools Face Funding ‘Death Spiral’ as Enrollment Drops is from The NY Times. 5 big questions facing Miguel Cardona, Biden’s pick for education secretary is from Chalkbeat. Arizona charter school got a PPP l

Special Edition: Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h

Note: Usually, I only post this regular feature once a week. This week, though, there are a lot of resources to share, so I’m posting twice to make space for all of them!) BiljaST / Pixabay Six years ago I began this regular feature

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

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Sunday, December 27, 2020