ICYMI: Mother's Day 2023 Edition (5/14)

Well, that's it teachers. Teacher Appreciation Week is over and now we can go back to the usual everyday levels of appreciation (or the lack thereof). In the meantime, today we will appreciate moms. And while all that appreciating is flying about, here's some reading from the week.

‘Education reform’ is dying. Now we can actually reform education.

Perry Bacon Jr. at the Washington Post had a must-read column this week, a compact history of modern ed reform paired with a succinct articulation of a positive vision for public education.

Williamson County mom helps launch national campaign pushing back on 'parents rights' groups

Let's start with something encouraging-- a group of moms who are trying to act as a counter-force to some of those other parental rights (for the parents we approve of) groups. By Rachel Wegner in The Tennessean.

Public Education Is Vital for Democracy. But It’s Not the Solution to Poverty or Inequality.

In Jacobin, Jennifer Berkshire takes a look at Jon Shelton's new book, the Education Myth (my copy is on the way), which takes a look at the notion that education will somehow fix poverty and inequality ion this country (spoiler alert: it won't).

A Charter School Board Member Says The Quiet Part Out Loud

Carl Petersen catches a charter board member talking out loud about the practice of creaming students and only accepting the Right Students for the school (spoiler alert: they do it).

False choice: Wisconsin taxpayers support schools that can discriminate

Phoebe Petrovic at Wisconsin Watch covers a voucher school story that asks if a school can really discriminate in ways that would be illegal for a public school, even as they accept taxpayer money. Can they really suspend two successful, accomplished seniors from activities just because they are in a gay dating relationship? (Spoiler alert: Yes, they can).

A Philly charter school manipulated its lottery to keep kids out, a top administrator says

A Philly charter is also caught cooking the books. Story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, so if you want to get the story without navigating the paywall, check out the coverage by the indispensable Mercedes Schneider here. 

A Tennessee teacher planned a Mother’s Day class. Then came the MAGA rage.

Just another one of those stories. As always, chicken administration is a key feature. 

State offices tasked with making Indiana high school curricula more career-centered

Well, here's a new wrinkle. What if taxpayers were to foot the bill for a private business's job training?

The Troubling Focus on Testing Rewards, Testing Pep Rallies, and Test Prep Bootcamps

You already know that most of this stuff is a bad idea, but Nancy Bailey has the research to back it up.

The Black Screen of Agony

Is it a "standardized" test if every student has a different experience, depending on how well their computer works (or doesn't)? Gregory Sampson with some reminders of what this kind of testing looks like at ground level.

Why Is the Ohio Legislature So Devoted to the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee?

Jan Resseger looks at Ohio's misguided devotion to a third grade reading retention policy. 

Where the Boys Aren’t: Why is Teaching Still a Female-Dominated Profession?

Nancy Flanagan asks the question. Do you already follow her blog? Because you should.

Teach Like a Desert Father

From the blog Whatonomy, another meditation on teaching in the age of AI.

The truth is that my immediate thought is that the poem had been written using Open AI’s ChatGPT. This thought was the first arrow. The pain of self-loathing that arose from the entertaining of this suspicion, this doubt was the second arrow. I had recently attended a poetry competition organised by a group of students and I knew that, from this moment on, I would in all likelihood never be able to freely enjoy listening to my students’ recitals of their original work without, from time to time, wondering whether indeed they had written their own work or whether AI had had a grubby, silicon hand in the poem’s creation.

Texas lawmaker lobbies for 3rd graders to be trained to administer aid for gunshot wounds in the event of a school shooting, says report

For your Crazy Stuff That Is Actually Happening file. And you thought that active shooter drills were traumatizing...

Chaplains could be in Texas public schools this fall under new bill

Also in Texas. Because, Texas. 

‘Trump was great at this’: How conservatives transformed a Colorado school district

This story from NBC News is pretty frustratingly rage-inducing, but it's important to understand just how bad things can get when you put terrible people with no real interest in education on a school board. And I call them terrible not because I disagree with their politics, but because of their desire to exercise to slap people down just because they can and because they believe they should be making Certain People hurt. 

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