Sunday, December 6, 2020

ICYMI: So It's Really December Edition (12/6)

Still trying to take care of all the places the cold gets into our house, because apparently the season is serious about things. Still counting down to the magical day when I can go many days at a time without asking, "Well, what has the President done today?" But there are still some good things to read from this week, so here's your list.

How DeVos May Have Started a Counter-Revolution in Education   

Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire in the New York Times explaining how Betsy DeVos has broken up an unspoken treaty between conservative and liberal ed reform folks, and how that may open the door to some actual steps forward.

Are We Compassionate Enough In School?

A hell of a question, posed by guest writer Matthew Fleming over at Ed Week. Pretty cool little piece about some of the things that create fatigue and burnout.

Behaviorism, Surveillance, and (School) Work  

Audrey Watters was a speaker at the #AgainstSurveillance teach-in, and here's what she said. As always, informative and infuriating, including enterprise software, Skinner's box for babies, and test proctoring. 

Anti-Affirmative Action Group Hopes Conservative Supreme Court Will Finally Give Them A Win  

Now that the Supreme Court has been tilted a bit further rightward, all manner of folks are getting ready to take a run at SCOTUS to get their favorite reactionary cause pumped up. So here come Students for Fair Admission, ready to stump for favored admission status for white guys. From the Root.

Rundown Schools Force More Students To Go Remote   

Hechinger Reports with a good look at how some schools were hit extra hard by the pandemic because they'd already gone years without decent maintenance. Let critical resources decay, and they can't sustain an extra hit--go figure. 

VCs Are Pouring Money Into the Wrong Education Startups

Venture capitalists, or vulture capitalists--take your pick, but they're making sure this mess doesn't go to waste. WIRED takes a look at where the money is going.

A Soccer Club and $1.2 Million for a charter school

We mentioned this here at the Institute back when the grant was first issued, but now Carol Burris at the Washington Post has even more details, and the rest of the story (which is that these amateurs didn't even get their school approved). Just our tax dollars--well, not so much "at work" as "being wasted."

Worse than Betsy DeVos: The disturbing story of 2020 school board elections

Jeff Bryant has looked downticket to discover that in many school board elections, pubic education was not the winner. From Alternet.

Online exam monitoring can invade privacy and erode trust at universities  

A Canada-centric look at the rapidly spreading ugly mess that is tecno-proctoring. Short form: it's bad.

Texas high school senior suspended for painted nails  

I'm always leery of these sorts of stories, because there is often another side of the tale that the school isn't free to tell. But I can't think of another side that would make this any less stupid. Sometimes public schools put dopes in charge, and they make dopey policies.


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