Sunday, July 9, 2023

ICYMI: Limited Twitter Edition (7/9)

It's been a week since Elon decided to slow down the Twitter (because if you're having trouble signing advertisers, finding a way to get your users to use less is a sup0er idea) and mostly I've been unaffected in my personal viewing habits. Am I being viewed less because of it? Who knows. In the meantime, I have a Threads account under my same handle. I predict I won't use it much because A) I never did get the hang of Instagram and B) I mostly do this stuff on a desktop. 

Here's the reading for the week. I tried to keep the Moms stuff to a minimum, but their soiree last weekend sucked up an awful lot of the oxygen on the interwebs. There's other useful stuff here, too.

Anti-Woke Oklahoma School Boss Is Due for a Wakeup Call

Oklahoma's Secretary Dudebro is facing yet another round of issues from his time managing federal grant money.

The right-wing scheme to upend public education — for $125 per hour

At Popular Information, a look at Jordan Adams, the larval consultant currently trying to de-wokify Pennridge schools in PA. Good deep dive into the work of this underqualified Hillsdale alum.

Inside Moms for Liberty’s summit: Big money and even bigger conspiracy theories

Olivia Little went to the M4L rally for Media Matters, and she managed to get into the breakout sessions, which is where the really wacky stuff happened--including some tactics preached by the above-mentioned Jordan Adams.


Media Matters also sent Madeline Peltz to the M4L confab, and she filed this novel view.

NBC News got a reporter into the session on media managing, and it's an illuminating batch of advice.

Moms for Liberty Is the Tea Party All Over Again

You'll have to navigate The Nation's infuriating "free article" system to see this, but it's a good take of the more heavily alarmed view of M4L.

Numbers suggest murky future for Moms for Liberty

This Medium post from Heath Brown will help you feel a little better. He takes a closer look at some of the details that suggest M4L is not destined to have a huge effect nationally.

How Idaho’s troubled Empowering Parents vendor expanded its national brand

From Idaho Ed News, a look behind the curtain at how these companies that manage voucher money actually operate. 

School vouchers were supposed to save money for Arizona. So far, it's not working.

What's remarkable about this research is not the conclusion (vouchers are costing the state more money) but how easy it is to do the math. Like, a legislator who wanted to could easily have figured this out before hitting taxpayers up to fund an expensive system.

Let’s stop focusing on rankings and rethink what makes a good school

Ashley Carey at Hechinger with some thoughts about finding something better than current crappy test-based ranking

What did a big new study of charter schools really find?

Speaking of evaluating schools, Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat looks at that CREDO study that charter fans keep pushing, the one that supposedly shows charters doing so much better than public schools. Let's take a closer look.

A Georgia teacher’s plight exposes the essence of anti-woke MAGA fury

At the Washington Post, a look at the story of the Georgia teacher who has been canned for exposing her students to a naughty book.

3 Ways to Lose Democratic Public Schools: The Crisis on This 4th of July

Nancy Bailey lays out some of the threats to public education.


Neha Wadekar and Ryan Grim at the Intercept have an update on Bridge Academies, the school-in-a-can money grab that has been in Africa for a while (I previously wrote about it here, here, and here). The story has it all. Harvard grad do-gooders. Big money. Social impact investing. Computerized lesson delivery. But, unfortunately, not much in the way of functioning schools. And now this story of sexual abuse and some pretty shocking moves to silence critics. This story is from back in March, but I only just came across it, and it's too important to miss.

How Mississippi gamed its national reading test scores to produce 'miracle' gains
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By Michael Hiltzik. Mississippi's big reading miracle? Not actually a miracle at all.

New Ohio Budget Fully Funds Next Step in the Fair School Funding Plan, but also Explosively Expands School Vouchers

Ohio's legislature just did some things, and some of them were pretty not-good. Jan Resseger has the story.

Josh Shapiro's love of vouchers doesn't seem to have waned, but at least this budget round will not include them. Chalkbeat has the story.

Uber, pizza delivery, selling food - Local teachers work overtime to make ends meet

Remember when talked so much about teachers needing side gigs? Did that conversation stop because teachers got such great raises? Ittai Sopher reports from Louisiana.

Your only job is to love them.

At Answer Key, a reflection on the foundation of The Work.

Mr. Fitz

Mr. Fitz provides an Indiana Jones-inspired education adventure.

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