I expect my family to celebrate my birthday even though I am fat and balding and sometimes a jerk. I expect to celebrate my country's birthday no matter how many of her ideals she has failed to live up to or how many shenanigans are currently being perpetrated in her name. More to the point, I refuse yp yield the field to people who would inflict a warped and toxic idea of what constitutes a real American. However you cope with the holiday, here's some reading from last week.
School's Out Forever
If you're only going to read one item on the list this week, here it is. Kathryn Joyce writing for Salon about Arizona's new bonehead idea, how they got there, how they ignored the will of the people, and what happens next.
How pro-charter school tech billionaires quietly influence state government
Ian Round at the Daily Memphian has a story about some folks have finally noticed the Chiefs for Change, Jeb Bush's old reformster newtork, is Up To Something, and try to figure out what. Update: this turns out to be behind a paywall, but TC Weber has a summary of the choice bits that you can read here.
Indiana police set as state handgun permit requirement ends
The education quote is this one:
"A guy can stand out there — or a girl or whoever with a rifle, an AR-15 or a handgun — and stand there on a sidewalk looking at the school. The difference is this: We can't even stop and ask them what they're doing because of this law."
would have been a better headline that the dumb one that Time chose, but this is a fine example of how anti-"CRT" laws have working to make teachers nervous and quiet.
Emily Popel interviews Anya Kamenetz about her new book, and the result is some useful insights.
Ana Ceballos and Sommer Brugal of the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald talked to some of the teachers taking Florida's training for the new Hillsdale-backed civics "education," and it's swell. Well, other than the overt pushing of Christianity and historical inaccuracy, it's swell.
Are Christians to Blame for the Political Mess We Find Ourselves In?
Nancy Flanagan offers some thoughtful reflection on the place of religion and religious myths in our educational system.
If you can stand to read one more piece about this Very Bad SCOTUS decision, this is a good one in Vanity Fair.
LGBTQ clubs were havens for students. Now they’re under attack.
Hannah Natanson with this crushingly sad piece that shows how real, live human people get chewed up by political opportunism feeding panic.
Akil Bello at Forbes talking about the victory of the test prep industry over the keepers of the testing flame.
I live in Indiana. It has always been legal to carry a rifle or a shot gun without a license in any public area. One time, my school had a lockdown because a man carried a rifle past the school on the sidewalk. He had been hunting and his pickup broke down. He thought it would be more responsible to take the weapon with him than leave it out in the truck.
ReplyDeleteHe had a point, but it caused quite a stir. Good news - the cops gave him a ride home before he continued on past two more schools on the way home.
Indiana has changed the law so the open carry apllies to pistols, too. Long guns are very hard to conceal, but even a pistol openly carried on a holster can escape attention. Not a great new law.