ICYMI: Three More Sleeps Edition (12/22)

If your household calendar is tied to the school calendar, your holiday is likely under way. If your calendar is like ours, you are running a tad behind on the various holiday stuff. Every year I think my old geology professor, who was also the cornet player in our college trad jazz band, had the right idea--he and his wife sent out cards every year to celebrate Ground Hog Day. 

At any rate, here is your reading list for the week. 

Trump’s School Improvement Plan: Deport American Students

The 74's Mark Keierleber offers a quick summation of one of Trump's many terrible ideas that would affect schools.

Why It’s Hard to Control What Gets Taught in Public Schools

Dana Goldstein at the New York Times looks at the plans to enforce what is taught in some classes, and why that trick hardly ever works.

Noem proposal would fund Christian ‘segregation academies’

Rick Snedeker argues that the governor of South Dakota is trying to bring back segregation academies with a special new twist.

Schrödinger’s Cat

I was feeling clever about thinking of Trump education policy as a Schrodinger's cat kind of thing, and then found that Greg Samson had already done a far better job of running with the idea. 

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs asks Tom Horne to reverse automatic voucher reimbursement plan

Arizona's governor thinks maybe they should take some simple steps to cut back on the massive fraud that the program keeps fostering. AZ Superintendent Tom Horne says, "How dare you!"

$22 million in WV Hope Scholarship spent on out of state schools, iPads, dance studios and more

Speaking of voucher programs that waste taxpayer dollars, Amelia Ferrell Knisely reports on the new voucher program in West Virginia, already wasting dollars right and left.

The Story of one Mississippi County Shows How Private Schools Are Exacerbating Segregation

ProPublica takes a close look at one district as an example of how segregation via private schools is still a big thing (and not just in the South). An important read.

Write It Down Somewhere (Some Advice for New Teachers)

Some specific and practical advice for people navigating that special hell that is a first year in the classroom. Jose Luis Vilson has been there.

The Amazing Power of Snowpants

Nancy Flanagan reminds us of the importance of what may seem like small things, but which sre really much bigger.

Billionaires’ Love Affair with School Reform with No Accountability (Part 1)

Larry Cuban takes us down memory lane and the many rich guys who have been moved by the claims that US schools are just so broken.

Ohio State Senator Pushes New Version of Punitive Plan to Restructure or Take Over Low-Scoring Schools

Jan Resseger is still trying to keep up with the Ohio legislature's determination to become the Florida of the Midwest, aggressively hostile to the very idea of public education. 

Benchmarking the pedagogical unknown

Ben Riley continues to be a useful source of explanations and unraveling of the world of AI in education. This latest piece includes yet another useful and somewhat mind-twigging explanation of what a Large Language Model actually does.

Why Reading Books in High School Matters

At The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin interviews Rose Horowitch about the drop in students who read whole books, and nailed all the points, including the rise of excerpt teaching for test prep. 

The Supreme Court Argument in ConVal-The State Wants to Make Claremont Mythical and the Court hints at avoiding Judicial Norms.

New Hampshire is one of those states where the court has said they need to shape up their education funding (in a case named for the town where I did much of my growing up), so of course some folks are trying to challenge that whole thing. Andru Volinsky, an education lawyer in those parts, tells the story about the state supreme court.

Will Hegseth Disrupt the nation’s top performing school system?

Hegseth is a terrible choice for the Department of Defense for so many reasons. But the DoD is notable for having an outstanding school system which owes much of its success to actual functioning equity programs. Well, somebody is surely going to want to put a stop to that. Sue Kingery Woltanski with the story.

In online drone panic, conspiracy thinking has gone mainstream

Not an education story, exactly... and yet. Tatum Hunter at the Washington Post lays out the great drone panic, an event that tells us a lot about how people insist on maintaining their own ignorance and do everything except trying to find reputable information about something that's freaking them out.

At Forbes.com this week, I took a shot at predicting six major education stories of the new year. 

You can find me at Bluesky as @palan57.bsky.social, and of course there's the regular newsletter with all my stuff in your email for free.