We said goodbye to yet another member of the extended family this week, so that got things off to a sad start. And now that I look at the week's readings--well, I will warn you up front that it is not an encouraging batch. This is probably a good week not read absolutely everything here.
Tucker Carlson calls on men to storm into schools "and thrash the teacher"
Let's get the most infuriating thing out of the way first. No, there's not full context for the quote. Is there a context that would make it better? I don't think so.
Betsy DeVos and Her Money Is Backing Ron DeSantis
No big surprises here, but at Salon, Igor Derysh breaks down how DeVos money is funding Florida's governor.
Fact check on DeSantis Don't Say Gay story
You'll be shocked to discover that one of DeSantis's stories about the need for the Don't Say Gay law is not entirely acurate.
This may be the shortest post you ever read from the indispensable Mercedes Schneider, but if you're a teacher, you will recognize this week in a teacher's life.
Missing: Future teachers ins colleges of education
NEA takes a look at how the pipeline is doing, and the answer is "not well." For example, "While 55 percent of U.S. students are People of Color, nearly 70 percent of prospective teachers are White, the AACTE analysis found."
The harm caused by the third grade reading ultimatum
Nancy Bailey looks at some of the damage created by the whole "pass the third grade reading test or else" movement.
Did we really learn anything about schools in the pandemic?
Valerie Strauss asks the big question-- specifically, did we learn anything that we did not already know?
State takeover of school districts no silver bullet
From Commonwealth magazine. In which Massachusetts learns that district takeover by the state doesn't actually do any good. In other news, the sun is expected to rise in the East tomorrow.
What music teachers do in the summer
Nancy Flanagan with a reminder that for many teachers, summer is not strictly a vacation.
Many teens report emotional and physical abuse by parents during lockdown
I'm sending you to this New York Times piece via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette so you can skirt the firewall. It's a discouraging piece, but teachers can get confirmation here of their sense of the heavy load some students have been carrying the past couple of years.
Southwest Missouri high school teacher accused of using critical race theory loses job
A simple privilege checklist for a reading unit was enough to get this teacher a non-renewal of her contract, even though she had the support of her administration. Infuriating and depressing.
No, machine learning can't predict trustworthiness based on faces
Not directly tied to education, but a useful addition to the "No, Ai Is Not Magic" file. From The Debrief, a look at how some bad old claims get a new life via software.
"Educators are afraid" says teacher attacked for Romeo and Julliet unit
At Valerie Strauss's Washington Post column, teacher Sarah Mulhern Gross explains just how scary it is out there these days.
If standardized tests were going to succeed, they would have done so by now
Steven Singer walks us through some of the history of education's greatest failed policy idea.
Mitchell Robinson for Michigan State Board of Education
Friend of the Institute Mitch Robinson is running for the state board. Passionate and committed and exceedingly well-informed, he would be an excellent choice. If you are a Michigan voter, you should vote for him.
What Biden's proposed reforms to the charter school program really say
There's a lot of flap this week over the proposed changed to a federal charter grant program, mostly because the charter lobby really really really hates it. Once again, we turn to Valerie Strauss's column at the Washington Post, this time to hear from Carol Burris about what's really going on. You can also read what I have to say about here at Forbes and here at this blog. The next few days are your last to go make a comment in support, and you should definitely do that.
Also at Forbes.com this week (I was busy)
North Carolina has a terrible idea about how to change their already-terrible teacher pay system
and
Check out this new method from the far-far-right for trying to scare school board's into compliance.
Want to "prove" that 8-year-old children can't read. Easy, just write ELA standards that produce test items like this:
ReplyDeleteFlying On Ice by Valerie Hunter
Paragraph 6:
“Riley retied her skate laces and crouched next to Craig. “Get on my
back,” she said, and Craig did. Riley started skating, but Craig didn’t feel like he was flying. It just felt like a wobbly piggy-back ride.”
Paragraph 23:
“Riley and Liz started skating, pulling Craig with them. The edges of his skate blades just touched the ice. The girls went faster and faster, and so did he. When he looked down, his skate blades were a silver blur. His hat nearly blew off”
Which sentence best describes how paragraph 6
relates to paragraph 23?
A Paragraph 6 provides a problem and paragraph 23 provides a
solution.
B Paragraph 6 asks a question and paragraph 23 provides an answer.
C Paragraph 6 provides a cause and paragraph 23 shows an effect.
D Paragraph 6 provides similarities and paragraph 23 shows differences
This was an actual test item on the 2019 NYS, Grade 3,
ELA “reading” test. And it typifies many of the test items found in all Common Core based assessments.
Makes you wonder if Valerie Hunter could answer it correctly.