ICYMI: Almost Election Day (11/6)

Good lord, this ugly mess is almost over and we can move on to the ugly aftermath. In the meantime, here are some things to read. Don't forget to share the ones you like-- remember, only good content can drive out bad content.

What Google Learned from Its Quest To Build the Perfect Team

This is one of the most important things for me, personally and professionally, that I've read in a while. It has nothing directly to do with education, and everything to do with education. Here's what we know about a perfect team

Why I Chose To Teach

Short, raw, honest piece from a teacher in Philly about how and why he got where he is.

How Arts Education Teaches Kids To Learn From Failure

Before you can do good work, you have to do bad work. This is a pretty awesome piece.

Rewarding Failure

EdWeek presents a whole suite of articles about cyber charters, and it's brutal. As bad as you may think cybers are, it turns out things are even worse.

Value-Added for Kindergarten Teachers in Ecuador

Vamboozled with two major pieces of info-- the kind of VAM that you do with littles is really, truly awful crap, and reformsters are busy (like so many other business folks) exporting their lousy practices to places that don't have the rules in place to keep them out.

Charter Schools' Big Lie

A guest op-ed by Dan Gleason explains just how badly Massachusetts charters suck the money right out of the public school system.

Charter Lobby Chases Cut of Public Funds

Wendy Lecker takes a look at some of the players and some of the games they play in the attempt to grab public tax dollars for the charter business

Families for Excellent Trains

Jennifer Berkshire is always worth reading, but she's particularly on point this time with a look at how privatization in Massachusetts and Arne Duncan's small balls are connected to DFER and burning trains.

How Leading Charter Funders Are Upping the Ante in Their Bid To Blow the Bay State's Charter Cap

Andrea Gabor lays out the charter-run, dark-money-funded assault on the charter cap in Massachusetts.

Thoughts on Question 2 and Charter School Expansion

When it comes to explaining complicated statistical stuff, nobody does it better than Mark Weber at Jersey Jazzman. Here's what lies behind some of the numbers thrown around in the Mass debate over the charter cap. And, yes, I know I'm on that issue a lot this week, but it's important-- if Massachusetts gets taken down by the charteristas, we're all in trouble.

Finally, here are some puppies. Lord knows we can all use some puppies this week.