ICYMI: Here We Go Again Edition (8/28)

We've been to orientation and now, in a couple of days, the board of directors begin kindergarten and the CMO* starts her new year. Soon I'll have extra time on my hands, Yikes. In the meantime, here's some reading form the week.

There is no national teacher shortage

One more entry in the continuing attempt to quantify and give a name to whatever it is that's going on in US education. This time it's Derek Thompson at The Atlantic trying to take a look at actual numbers and not finding much data to crunch...

Polygamy charter school ordered to remove entire board

From the Wait What File, a story from Utah about a charter school that has been started up by a family from a polygamous sect, and even the state of Utah decided that some of these shenanigans need to stop. 

Ignite charter school rebrands

Speaking of charter shenanigans, Chalkbeat Indiana has the story of a charter that ran into all sorts of failure, and so just gave itself a new name and got right back to it.

Oklahoma punished two school districts for violating gag order.

PEN America looks at Oklahoma, where the state board of education has set out to punish a couple of school districts for violating the state's gag order. 

Norman teacher resigns over flap around sharing library access code

Speaking of gag rules in OK, here's the tale of the teacher who got in trouble for sharing information about the Brooklyn Library plan to share books with any students in the US. 

Best Book of 2022--Left Behind

Thomas Ultican offers a positive review of Lily Geismer's boo Left Behind: The Democrats Failed Attempt To Solve Inequalkity, which appears to be a heavily researched look at the Dems descent into neo-liberalism. So of course it addresses school choice, too. 

Decades of villainization caused our mass teachers' exodus

Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire are at The Hill laying out the long, sad history of treating teachers like the problem in public ed--including the part of that history that belongs to the Democrats. 

A Half Century of Student Progress Nationwide

This article is at Education Next, and it's written by Paulk Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel, and despite all the reformster weight backinmg it, it includes this sentence:

Contrary to what you may have heard, average student achievement has been increasing for half a century.

There's a lot of argle bargle here, but when reformsters start explaining that public school students haven't been descending into awfulness for the past several decades, it's worth a look.

The hidden role of a religious lobbying group in Ohio's backpack bill

Zurie Pope in the Ohio Capital Journal has the info on just who has been helping to push voucherization in Ohio. You may already have known that the Center for Christian Virtue's role in pushing the bill, but Pope is looking at the emails surrounding the creation and promotion of the bill, and CCV's fingerprints are everywhere. 

The MAP Test-- selling schools unnecessary junk at student expense

Steven Singer has a bone or two to pick with the MAP test.

The Watchman Decree: Christian Nationalism's name it and claim it dangerous prayer

If you've been looking for a Christian pastor to push back against some of the christianist nationalist baloney out there, let me intriduce you to a Baptist minister from my neighborhood, who took a look at that video from Flashpoint Live that's been circulting, and offers a point-by-point Christian rebuttal (and no, you don't have to watch the original video to follow this).