ICYMI: Party Day Edition (6/9)

This week the Board of Directors turned 7, and this afternoon we'll be celebrating with an assortment of classmates, cake, fruit, and a swimming pool. Good times. Also this week, the insurance company declared my car a total loss, so I've got that project to take care of. But the Board and the CMO are now officially on summer vacation, and the last day of school is behind us and summer is here. So we've got that going for us. 

Last day of school!

But meanwhile there is a whole heap of reading to do, so here's your list. Live it up!

You’re paying for Pa.’s cyber charter schools. You deserve to know where your money goes

Legislator Joe Ciresi joins the chorus of people begging to finally stop wasting taxpayer dollars on an overpriced service that doesn't deliver. He's not the only person ringing this alarm bell.Not by a long shot.

Data-Mining and the "Data Race"​ for Gold in Texas

If you have sort of let data mining of children and cradle-to-career tracking drift to the back of your mind, the folks who want to push that stuff have not. Lynn Davenport lays out some of the players involved these days.

Floridians come to Iowa bearing brilliant ideas

Todd Dorman has a column in The Gazette that deploys sass and facts to explain how Iowa Republicans are getting their ideas from wealthy Florida business folks.

 

Local school, run by group on SPLC 'hate map,' is part of state's voucher program

In New Hampshire, it turns out that one school hoovering up taxpayer-funded vouchers is an outfit so radical that the Catholic Church says, "uh-uh--they are not with us no matter what they say!" Christopher Cartwright reports for the Keene Sentinel. 

Judge issues ruling in Catholic lawsuit over Colorado universal preschool program

Catholic preschools in Colorado were sad because the state wouldn't give them taxpayer money without requiring them to not discriminate against LGBTQ folks (among others). The ruling doesn't help much, but there's a depressing twist-- the state has solved the problem by cutting the anti-discrimination language. Melanie Asmar at Chalkbeat reports.

Republican Pennridge School Board Director Wants Students to Be Taught Creationism

You might think this has already been settled, but a school board director in Pennridge would like to mandate the religious version of the origins of the universe. Jenny Stephens reports for the Bucks County Beacon.

An American flag, a pencil sharpener − and the 10 Commandments: Louisiana’s new bill to mandate biblical displays in classrooms is the latest to push limits

Charles Russo writes for The Conversation about Louisiana's attempt to get religion into the classroom.

Billions in taxpayer dollars now go to religious schools via vouchers

Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein do some honest to goodness reporting on just who gets the benefit of taxpayer-funded vouchers-- and who doesn't. It's in the Washington Post.

Florida revises school library book removal training following public outcry

On the USA Today network, a report on Florida doing its "Okay, now that we made a public splash by announcing a policy, let's adjust it a tiny bit to reality" thing.

Third Grade Retention: The Gool's Gold of Reading Reform

Paul Thomas is here to remind us that this dumb policy is a dumb policy.

Why “Fund Students, Not Systems” Is a Recipe for Disaster

On the one hand, it's behind The Nation's annoying paywall. On the other hand, it's Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, so you know it's worth a read.

An Illinois School District’s Reliance on Police to Ticket Students Is Discriminatory, Civil Rights Complaint Says

ProPublica reports on a district where they have real cops give real students real tickets. Guess who gets the greater number of them.

Dark Money Ran Through Texas’s Runoffs and Probably Just Delivered Win for Private School Vouchers

Marlissa Collier reports on how hard Abbott and some friends worked to get him his vouchers.

Man with Sixteen College Degrees Can’t Read

Nancy Flanagan with a tale about reading and some assumptions we make about it.

Moms for Liberty Was Never About Protecting Kids

Maurice Cunningham for The Progressive and yet another Moms for Liberty spin on their bogus history.

Florida sticks by social studies standard teaching ‘benefit’ of slavery

Florida has some really dumb ideas about how the history of enslaving folks should be taught, so bad that even Byron "Jim Crows Was Great" Donalds objected.

Sex Discrimination Education Law

Thomas Ultican provides some history of Title IX

The Women Will Do It

Anne Lutz Fernandez looks at the new book Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net.

Ask When Children Should Begin to Read

Nancy Bailey continues to shed light on the world of reading instruction and some of the actual research behind it.

An Unserious Book

Sal Khan is back once again to tell us another of his amateur-hour ideas about how to revolutionize education while disguising marketing as analysis. John Warner explains why you can ignore Khan's new book.

Both State Tax Cuts and the School Voucher Expansion Threaten Fair and Equal Public School Funding in Ohio

Ohio continues to do its best to become the Florida of the midwest. Luckily, Jan Resseger is there to explain their anti-public-ed policies.

Are we intelligent or are we educable?

Benjamin Riley explains some of the major theories about what makes human thinking unique.

The New Apostolic Reformation Wants God's Government Back

Texas Observer with more reporting on the NAR, that delightful group of anti-democracy dominionists that you should be paying more attention.

NAR 19-county plan

Religion Dispatches covers the plan to hit 19 particular counties hard for the next election. Some of these will seem familiar.

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