CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Still Waiting for Winter Edition (1/6)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Still Waiting for Winter Edition (1/6)

ICYMI: Still Waiting for Winter Edition (1/6)

Still no snow in my neck of the woods, but still plenty of writing about education to be read. Remember, sharing is caring.

Keep That Same Energy 

Jose Luis Vilson has my favorite kick off the new year piece. Check it out.

Excuse Me While I Teach Your Child

A greatest hits fun and games from McSweeney's

Appellate Division Kills Zombie PARCC

A great breakdown of New Jersey's rejection of the little-loved PARCC exam

How To Help Public School Teachers Love Their Profession Again

From The Hill, of all places. You may agree with all, some, or none, but it's a good conversation starter.

The Year in K-12 Education

A Kansas professor takes a look at what happened to education out in the plains.

It's Time We Started Calling School Choice What It Is

And that's privatization.

What If Schools Focused on Improving Relationships Instead of Test Scores.    

The tale of someone who left the work and then came back to a whole different kind of school, and realized what had been wrong all along.

Five Things Lawmakers Can Do for Education in 2019.     

We're talking about North Carolina here, but the items on the list can apply in many states.


CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Still Waiting for Winter Edition (1/6)

Terror, Hubris and AI (or Can Artificial Intelligence Fake Being A Self-important Pompous Tool?)

by Peter Greene / 19h

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, if not a hot new product itself, the additive that helps sell a million other products ("New! Improved!! Now with AI!!!"). And the proponents of AI are loaded with big brass cyberballs when it comes to making claims about their product. And all the most terrible and frightening things are happening in China . Come down this terrifying baloney-stuffed rabbit hole wi

JAN 04

After the Education Wars: The Best and Worst of Reform

by Peter Greene / 2d

Andrea Gabor is a business journalist by trade, and it's our great good fortune that she followed the thread of business-style reform into the world of education. Her recent book, After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform, is an invaluable addition to the literature of ed reform -- not the faux reform that has been foisted on us for the past decades, but ac dual impr

JAN 03

It's Not the Implementation

by Peter Greene / 2d

"You just didn't implement it properly." This is the all-too-frequent cry of program creators and policy writers after their pet project goes belly up in the great goldfish bowl of education. It was a popular explanation for the crash of Common Core. More than a few district superintendents have used it to explain why their pet project failed. And publishers like to use it as an explanation for w

Not Quite Seven Reasons To Ditch Teachers Unions

200+by Peter Greene / 3d

The Foundation for Economic Education may be the oldest libertarian thinky tank in the US, and they are a missionary group , set "to make the ideas of liberty familiar, credible, and compelling to the rising generation." So it comes as no surprise to find them running an article entitled " 7 Reasons To Say Goodbye to the Teachers Union." Author Daniel Buck is a bit of a mystery on line, but he lay

JAN 02

How Much Money In That Edusector?!!

70by Peter Greene / 4d

When you're starting to wonder why so many people are interested in education, even though they have no training, experience, or apparent deep interest in education, it's helpful to see some numbers. Like 2,600,000,000. Reportsnreports is an international outfit that provides "market research reports to industries, individuals, and organizations to accelerate decision making process." They offer a

JAN 01

School Choice Is School's Choice

58by Peter Greene / 4d

The core idea of every version of a school choice program is that students and their families will choose wha schools to attend. The anecdotal evidence has called that into question time after time, suggesting that it is schools that get to choose what students they will or will not accept. This happens not necessarily through direct rejection, but by a hundred little obstacles. An application sys

China: You Will Wear Big Brother

59by Peter Greene / 5d

If nothing else, China is constantly providing new responses to the comment, "Well, there's no way anybody could actually do that." What happens when the business mindset comes up against a powerful profit motive? China has provided continuing examples of how business-driven enterprises will sacrifice almost any of their principles when confronted by the opportunity to tap a huge market. What beco

DEC 31 2018

Is It A New Year?

by Peter Greene / 5d

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Eve for some personal reasons (ranging all the way back to a semi-public dumping back in high school), but I also find it a curious practice. It's that thing we humans do-- we make an somewhat arbitrary mark on the surface of the universe and then wear ourselves out investing it with Deep Significance. Is there a strong objective cosmological reason to declare toni

Venture Capital And Fake Teaching Careers

27by Peter Greene / 5d

Here's just one example of how the machine works. Earlier this month at Forbes, Jessica Pliska (who writes about careers) started with this chirpy lead . Access and opportunity aren’t words often associated with venture capital. Aaron Walker, CEO of Camelback Ventures, is looking to change that. Here, we chat about what shaped his vision for the future of venture capital, the management lessons he

DEC 30 2018

A Call for Hong Kong Reform

by Peter Greene / 6d

Philip Yeung was educated at Oxford and the University of Toronto, but he has made his living in China. He's been an academic consultant, a senior communications manager, and currently is with English for Emergencies (my new favorite company name) where he does ghostwriting . He's also an opinion writer for the South China Morning Post , which is where we find him today . Here's a message for eve

Elon Musk's Special School

by Peter Greene / 6d

There may be few Very Rich Guys who can top Elon Musk for confidence that is boundless and groundless , so it should come as no surprise that Musk started a school. Unlike other wealthy meddlers in the education world (and, that matter, unklike Musk when it comes to other enterprises), Musk has kept the not-for-profit school, created in 2014, mostly under wraps. That's because his goal has not bee

ICYMI: Arbitrary Marker Of Time's Inexorable Passage Edition (12/30)

by Peter Greene / 6d

Yeah, I'm not big on the whole New Year celebratory thing. I will occasionally give in to the urge to do an end-of-year/beginning-of-year style post, but sometimes I think it's just as well to keep on keeping on. So here's this week's batch of worth-your-while readings. Beware Silcon Valley Santas in the School Michelle Malkin and I share little in the way of either style or beliefs, but if you wa

DEC 28 2018

Why Teachers Don't Use The Software Their Districts Paid For

200+by Peter Greene / 8d

Ryan Baker (University of Pennsylvania's Center for Learning Analytics) unleashed a small surprise last month with a report indicating that the vast amount of software licenses purchased by school districts are simply never used . There are points on which we might quibble, including the smallish sample size of districts (48) and the very small sample size of data management companies (1). But th

Defining Reformy Terms Is Everything

by Peter Greene / 9d

EdChoice has released their annual report about education , with a particular focus on reformy stuff. It's a survey of teachers, parents and the general public, and a look at attitudes and beliefs about many aspects of education. I've read 

John Thompson: The News from Oklahoma, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: The News from Oklahoma, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: The News from Oklahoma, Part 1

This is the first of a three-part series. Last spring, Oklahoma experiences a mass teacher walkout to protest underfunding of public schools.

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, writes:

Oklahoma made national headlines in 2018 because of its teacher walkout; teachers running for the legislature; and a “Blue Wave” in Oklahoma City and the nation’s biggest congressional upset. But the election of a vocal Trump supporter as governor has emboldened privatizers. In some ways, the drama is more common in states, like Oklahoma, that have cut schools and public services in the most extreme manner. Mostly, however, the assault on the state’s schools and the teachers’ counter-attack is representative of national privatization campaign.

Test-driven, charter-driven reform failed, so now the Billionaires Boys Club is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in selling the “Portfolio Model.”

The Portfolio Model is new and different. Its strategy is the opposite: charter-driven, test-driven reform.

Seriously, the Oklahoma education crisis and teacher shortage has been extreme, but a large part of our ordeal was the predictable result of the corporate reform agenda. It was imposed on our schools just like it was across the nation. Oklahomans now need to ask what would have happened to our dramatically underfunded schools had a grassroots teachers’ revolt not rolled back the “reforms” of 2010 to 2014. We then need to ask what will happen to our still-weakened public education systems if we can’t fight off these new, supposedly kinder and gentler reforms, like the portfolio model.

Non-Oklahomans might not recognize the full, frightening message CONTINUE READING: John Thompson: The News from Oklahoma, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog

Sacramento News & Review - Protect special education students from budget cuts - Essay - Opinions - January 3, 2019

Sacramento News & Review - Protect special education students from budget cuts - Essay - Opinions - January 3, 2019

Protect special education students from budget cuts
Sacramento City Unified School District isn’t doing right by special education students. Will budget crisis make it worse?

About a year ago, the Sacramento City Unified School District came under scrutiny for vast shortcomings in its special education program, mainly for African-American students and English learners.

A 2017 audit by The Council of the Great City Schools found that African-American students were nearly four times more likely to be given an out-of-school suspension, and that English learners were receiving only about half of the required special education services. The audit also concluded that both African-American students and English learners were being diagnosed to need special education services at a far higher rate than other students, and that the district’s rate for separating students with disabilities was higher than both state and national averages.

In response, the district and its new Superintendent Jorge Aguilar made public claims that it was comprehensively adopting the council’s recommendations and was committed to improving these shortcomings.

As a longtime advocate for persons with disabilities, these issues are what caused me to begin studying the district as part of my doctoral work at Sacramento State. By the summer of 2018, I had worked extensively to understand SCUSD’s special education shortcomings.

Then news began to emerge about the extent of the district’s budget deficit. In September, the Sacramento County Office of Education rejected SCUSD’s budget for the first time and warned that $28 million in cuts were needed. The district board talked about closing schools and laying off teachers.

I was devastated. How can the district afford to improve any outcomes in the face of such a huge budget crisis? Nonetheless, I continued my work.

But after watching the district board meeting on December 13, I felt even more uneasy. SCUSD warned that it will go bankrupt in 2019 without cuts to employee health benefits. But the Sacramento City Teachers Association is proposing cuts to administration instead. The district is in jeopardy of a state takeover.

I am a father of two SCUSD students, as well as an activist and a doctoral student. I feel the same unease CONTINUE READING: Sacramento News & Review - Protect special education students from budget cuts - Essay - Opinions - January 3, 2019

Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 2)

In Part 1, I described a Gates Foundation initiative aimed at identifying effective teachers as measured in part by their students’ test scores, rewarding such stellar teachers with cash, and giving poor and minority children access to their classrooms. Called Institute Program for Effective Teaching, the Foundation had mobilized sufficient political support for the huge grant to find and fund three school districts and four charter school networks across the nation. IPET launched in 2009 and closed it doors (and funding) in 2016.

A brief look at the largest partner in the project, Florida’s Hillsborough County district, over the span of the grant gives a peek at how early exhilaration over the project morphed into opposition over rising program costs that had to be absorbed by the district’s regular budget, and then key district and school staff’s growing disillusion over the project’s direction and disappointing results for students. Consider what the Tampa Bay Times, a local paper, found in 2015 after a lengthy investigation into the grant. [i]

• The Gates-funded program — which required Hillsborough to raise its own $100 million — ballooned beyond the district’s ability to afford it, creating a new bureaucracy of mentors and “peer evaluators” who no CONTINUE READING: Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

It’s the Class Size, Stupid – redqueeninla #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

It’s the Class Size, Stupid – redqueeninla

It’s the Class Size, Stupid

That’s what it is.  That’s all it is. 

LAUSD “management” (Beaudry Big Wigs, Superintendent, Board Members) may talk all they want about negotiations and good-faith bargaining, what it means to cross pickets lines and usurp graduation stages, what constitutes fiscal prudence and what constitutes negligent constraint, etc .

But at the end of the day, those who face teachers across the bargaining table:  have, and they will have, and will only ever have, lost the support of the pupil’s parents –– all parents –– if they fail to place more teachers at the head of more classrooms.

Board President Zimmer said it all right here, back in 2013: On Why Class Size Matters (@ 1:25 “I’ll clean it up”).

“Our parents are sending us messages: … if they weren’t … sending a message about class size it wouldn’t be on the front of every charter school website”.

In striking, our teachers are giving voice to that message. UTLA is sticking up for our children, their education, our democracy.  For all of us.  For the message parents are trying to send.

Salary and fair recompense is part of a complex package of grievances, to be CONTINUE READING: It’s the Class Size, Stupid – redqueeninla

Federal judge rejects L.A. school district’s bid to stop teachers from striking #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA - The Washington Post

Federal judge rejects L.A. school district’s bid to stop teachers from striking - The Washington Post

Federal judge rejects L.A. school district’s bid to stop teachers from striking

With the clock ticking on a strike by teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, a federal judge rejected a bid by Superintendent Austin Beutner’s administration to limit or stop the labor action from happening as scheduled this Thursday.

Attorneys for the nation’s second largest school district went to court on Thursday, telling U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew that students with special needs would be denied education services that are guaranteed to them under U.S. law.

Lew swiftly rejected the argument, saying Friday that the district was attempting to bring an unrelated issue into the contract dispute and that it had failed to show how the union, United Teachers of Los Angeles, would be liable if special education laws were not followed.

[Parent to L.A. school board as teachers threaten to strike: Why ‘my family will not cross the picket line’]

More than 30,000 teachers in Los Angeles are preparing to go out on strike on Thursday after more than 1½ years of unsuccessful contract talks with the district, with strike leaders meeting Saturday to make plans.

District officials said they have taken steps to keep schools open, including hiring hundreds of nonunion substitute teachers to fill in for educators walking picket lines. And they went to court.

United Teachers Los Angeles has demanded, among other things, a 6.5 percent pay raise; more money for schools; a boost in the number of counselors, nurses, social workers and librarians; a reduction in standardized testing; and an expansion of community schools.

The union has accused the district of claiming to have fewer resources than it really has, but Beutner’s administration says the district cannot afford many of the concessions and warns that the district could be insolvent in a few years.

A fact-finding panel tasked with trying to find a resolution to the contract impasse agreed with both sides on some points, saying that teachers do deserve a raise but that the district can afford only the 6 percent being CONTINUE READING: Federal judge rejects L.A. school district’s bid to stop teachers from striking - The Washington Post

CURMUDGUCATION: Terror, Hubris and AI (or Can Artificial Intelligence Fake Being A Self-important Pompous Tool?)

CURMUDGUCATION: Terror, Hubris and AI (or Can Artificial Intelligence Fake Being A Self-important Pompous Tool?)

Terror, Hubris and AI (or Can Artificial Intelligence Fake Being A Self-important Pompous Tool?)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, if not a hot new product itself, the additive that helps sell a million other products ("New! Improved!! Now with AI!!!"). And the proponents of AI are loaded with big brass cyberballs when it comes to making claims about their product. And all the most terrible and frightening things are happening in China. Come down this terrifying baloney-stuffed rabbit hole with me.

It starts with an absolutely glorious website-- PR Newswire. Newswire is part of Cision, a company that promises to move your pr by connecting using their Influencer Graph built with their Communications Cloud. Super social media PR (pr.cision-- get it?). Anyway, PR Newswire is a website of nothing but press releases, and it's kind of awesome. This news release has been run in many outlets. I'm digressing a bit here, but we need to remember through this whole trip that this is about a company that wants to sell a product.

Tucked in amidst the press releases is some "news provided by Squirrel AI Learning" about the AI Summit held about a month ago in New York, featuring over 350 experts, professors and business executives from the AI field discussing the technology and the commercial applications thereof. Why "squirrel" (there is such a thing as anti-squirrel AI)? Because squirrel is the symbol for "agility, diligence and management." Founded in 2014, Yixue Squirrel AI is headquartered in Shanghai and claims to be "the first K12 EdTech company which specializes in intelligent adaptive education in China" and, just so you know, they're "the market leader." They have opened "over 700 schools and have 3000 teaching staff in more than 100 cities." They have $44 million of investor money, an  CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Terror, Hubris and AI (or Can Artificial Intelligence Fake Being A Self-important Pompous Tool?)