DeSantis: More Shootings, Please

This week in his State of the State speech, Ron DeSantis announced that it was time to get over the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting--that would be the one in Parkland in which a 19-year-old killed 17 and injured 17 others in the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in US history. 

After that shooting, the state put in place a piddly excuse for an attempt to make such horrors less likely, but even that is too much for DeSantis, who specifically wants to get rid of language raising the age to purchase a shotgun or rifle from 18 to 21 and also the red flag law that lets family members or law enforcement petition the court to remove someone's firearms id they are risk to themselves of others. You know-- like maybe a 19 year old with a long history of racism and fascination with mass shootings. 

“We need to be a strong Second Amendment state. I know many of you agree, so let’s get some positive reform done for the people in this state of Florida,” DeSantis was quoted by the Florida Phoenix. 

Also, he'd like to have open carry in the state.

Because nothing is more important than an American's God-given right to shoot other people. Because we should go to any length to "protect" a fetus, but once it's a live child, its life is less important than someone's right to fire off a couple of rounds at anyone that bugs them. Because this is one more way politicians can show that for all their talk, they don't particular care about young humans. 

On the right column of the blogspot version of this blog, I have had one image parked for years. It's not complicated

I would say that it's the least we could do, but of course the least we can do is nothing, and Ron DeSantis would like us to get back to doing that. 

The only bright spot here is that the legislature doesn't seem to have his back on this. Good. DeSantis should be ashamed that he can't even produce a bad argument for his favored policies other than complaining that Florida has "lagged on this issue." What a bummer-- imagine all the people who are going to some other state because it's easier to shoot people there. 

Scary AI Teacher Coaching Tool

This seems like several kinds of bad ideas, and some schools are absolutely going to go for it.

What if teachers could have a sort of feedback and self-evaluation tool working with them every day, powered, of course, by AI? Well, dream no more.

Teachers get little feedback on classroom performance, nor is it possible to collect a ton of data while simultaneously doing the job. Kathleen Moore at the Times Union reports cheerfully:

Enter AI. The AI tool uses cameras and audio recordings to report on whether the teacher looked at or walked through each section of the classroom, how often they used group work, and many other techniques. Even the words the teacher and students use are tracked.

The AI works with the Mathematical Quality of Instruction, which comes to us from the Center for Education Policy Research. It is, they tell us, "a Common Core-aligned observational rubric that provides a framework for analyzing mathematics instruction in several domains." Ruh-roh.

It considers five domains-- common core-aligned student practices, working with students and mathematics, richness of mathematics, errors and imprecision, and classroom work is connected to mathematics. And I'm not going to dig any deeper because 1) I've got my doubts about how much of that an AI can actually measure and 2) common core. 

The fresh-faced assistant professor promoting this AI eval is Jonathan Foster, who started out teaching math (well, he really started out in South Carolina's Teacher Cadet program, a pretty nifty program aimed at getting high school students started on the path to teaching) at the Montessori Academy of Spartanburg. He was hired by SUNY at Albany in 2023. 

GT reports that Peter Youngs and Scott Acton of University of Virginia (education and computer engineering, respectively) are leading the project.

The money? Why, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-- a cool $1.4 million. 

They are field testing the tool on some early career teachers, who "have been receptive" but also complain that the AI "isn't good at noticing everything." No kidding. AI cannot understand or interpret in any conventional sense of the words. It can only scan for particular words or positions in the room. Which means that this system will inevitably train teachers to incorporate an assortment of odd behaviors and vocabulary for no reason other than it will game the AI.

While all of that provides reason enough to give this coaching tool a big fat side eye, here's a sentence that just hints at bigger issues:

But the AI can give them daily feedback, without it going on performance reports.

Yet.

I'm trying to imagine a universe in which administrators and policymakers say something along the lines of, "Well, the computer is just sitting there chock full of performance data on the teachers, but we should definitely not use that at all."

No, this tool is just a half-step away from being your computerized teacher evaluator, counting every day of your work as part of your professional measure. Some administrators would love it because it would save them time. Policymakers would love it because it generates numbers, so you know it's reliable hard data and all scientific and stuff. And if that's not scary enough, let's imagine what happens when someone hacks into the system. 

"Oh, but it's just math teachers," I hear you say. I invite you to travel to that imaginary universe where there is definitely nobody saying, "Yeah, with just a few tweaks we could totally use this to evaluate reading or history or home ec or phys ed teachers."

Foster gamely tries to head off the idea that this AI could be used to substitute for teachers. "I see the act of teaching as a human endeavor," he tells Moore, and I agree, but how human is a human who is taking career advice from an AI coach? 

It could be worse. I expect that right now, someone is out there programming an AI to work with the Charlotte Danielson framework. In the meantime, it's one more sign that teachers should prepare to meet their new robot overlords. 

McMahon's Three Convictions

Linda McMahon is now the latest in a long line of deeply unqualified Secretaries of Education, and she has hit the ground running with her memo about the department's Final Destination Solution Mission. 

She's pro-disruption! Nobody is more qualified than parents to make educational decisions (so non-parents should not be allowed to serve on a school board?). She started out to be a teacher almost (which, tragically, puts her far ahead of many of her predecessors). Education shouldn't be plagued with corruption and unjust discrimination (but the department has already thrown out many complaints of what I guess was just discrimination). She is a font of privateer right wing talking points.

McMahon focuses on three convictions, which, if nothing else, may give a clue which of the administration's conflicting education goals (end federal meddling in education, and increase federal meddling in education) she is going to pursue. None of them are good news.

Parents are the primary decision makers in their children’s education.

Send education back to the states! Then the states can send it back to parents and voila-- government has sloughed off any involvement in or responsibility for public education.

We should not take seriously any parental rights declaration that does not include recognition and protection of students' rights. Both their rights to safety and their rights to make choices about their own lives. 

It's also worth noting that this "empowerment" of parents is never accompanied by sources of information to help inform parental choices, nor regulation to assure parents that what they encounter on the free market is actually sound. Kind of like "We will abolish the FDA so that consumers are free to select from among a panoply of products that may or may include some which are poisonous, but we're sure the market will sort that out."

Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history—not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology.

The list of Things To Focus On is, of course, missing many items (art, music, writing, the ever-expanding list of "practical" items like filling out taxes and changing tires, etc etc etc). The "divisive DEI programs and gender ideology" portion is meaningless enough to be adapted to whatever grievance MAGA has decided to be outraged by. 

Are schools meant to ignore diversity and pretend that all students are the same? If equity is bad, how does one propose that inequity be administered? If schools are opposed to inclusion, who is meant to be excluded, and how should that exclusion be managed? Serving the special needs of some students comes under DEI--should that be terminated? 

The department has attempted to clarify its anti-diversity directive

"Schools may not operate policies or programs under any name that treat students differently based on race, engage in racial stereotyping, or create hostile environments for students of particular races," the letter reads. "For example, schools with programs focused on interests in particular cultures, heritages, and areas of the world would not in and of themselves violate Title VI, assuming they are open to all students regardless of race." The letter also clarified that identity-based observances like Black History Month are acceptable, as long as the events are open to all students.

Which comes awfully close to "you can't exclude white kids from anything." "Hostile environment" is a vague term that will depend entirely on how the folks in charge of enforcement care to interpret it. The language could certainly support a complaint about racism in a school, but the fact that the department has dropped a reported 10,000 complaints about disability access and sexual and racial harassment gives us a pretty good sense of which way the wind is blowing here.

"Gender ideology" is an even more mysterious term. As near as I can tell, "gender ideology" refers to anything that suggests that it's unremarkable that LGBTQ persons exist. 

Postsecondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs.

This administration is certainly not the first to want to apply return-on-investment analysis to higher education. The "aligned with workforce needs" is a popular standard for the business world; why train workers yourself if you can get post-high school institutions to create the pool of meat widgets you want (while getting the meat widgets themselves to pay for it). 

Nobody has yet figured out how to actually do this, and I don't imagine the current brain trust has any better ideas.

So what do we have here

Instead of dismantling the department and thereby ending its access to any levers of power, McMahon appears to be going with increasing the levels of micro-management by the feds in order to score some culture panic victories. 

"Final mission" tries to signal that they are absolutely going to dismantle the department just as soon as they clean up this culture panic stuff. However, the culture panic crowd is never done. I cannot imagine a universe in which McMahon says, "We have now wiped out all the terrible indoctrination and DEI/CRT/MOUSE in the education system, so we can shut down the department."

No, a culture panic movement is deeply in love with the problem, because the problem gives them license to do whatever they wish. To declare the problem solved is to give up the power they derive from continuously hammering the panic button. Like Betsy DeVos before her, McMahon may have been determined to dismantle the levers of power until she gets her hands on them and...well...maybe as long as it's for the right cause... Panic always craves power; I will put a small bet on the prediction that the department will not be tossed into the fires of Mount Doom any time soon. 

FL: No Art For Children

Florida's law about materials "harmful to minors" apparently needed a tweak, and Sen. Stan McClain has provided just the thing.

SB 1692 fixes that part of Florida law by addressing the part that defines "harmful to minors." It currently includes in that definition the clause that says that a work is not "harmful to minors" if it has "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors." 

McClain proposes to add a little language to that part of the definition, saying that it does not apply to any of the naughty stuff 

in an educational setting or to a determination made by an employee of any kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, junior high school, or secondary school, whether public or private, with regard to such material if the material is possessed by a person with the intent to send, sell, distribute, exhibit, represent, or display it to a minor and is not part of an approved instructional or library material.

In other words, if there's any depiction of "any kind of nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement," then artistic merit doesn't count. If a school employee says that in their professional judgment the work has merit for the students, that doesn't count. There is a carve-out for materials specifically authorized as part of state-required health education. 

The proposal is a little confusing-- it's okay if the work is part of "approved instructional or library material," and who is doing that approving if not a school employee? But as always, the point is not to be clear, but to be scary.

To help with the scariness, the bill requires the school to pull the materials within five days of an objection being filed and the material must remain "unavailable" while being considered. The bill says specifically that the school board may not consider "potential literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as a basis for retaining the material." 

If the board doesn't behave itself, the state may withhold state funds, grants, lottery funds, or any other funds they can figure out how to withhold. Plus the district has thirty days to come up with a "corrective action plan." After which the state can decide if it wants to come up with any other punishment for the district.

We humans do threat assessment by asking 1) how likely is it that the bad thing will happen and 2) how bad will the consequences be? So top-notch threat legislation like this hits both. How likely is a district to get in trouble? Hard to say-- the law is vague and anybody can turn them in. How bad will the consequences be? Probably pretty bad, but how bad is unclear.

What is clear is that Florida students would be protected from that nasty artistic, literary, political and scientific merit. Way to close that loophole!

If passed, the bill is supposed to take effect July 1, 2025. Place your bets now on how long it will take for some sassy district to ban the Bible.

More Culture Panic From Heritage Foundation

A who's who of culture warriors has helped the Heritage Foundation conjure up yet another set of demands for American public education. Think of this--The Pheonix Declaration--as the most current list of demands from the right wing privatization crowd.

The tone was set by news releases:

Dr. Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, emphasized the need for a proactive approach in education. "For too long, education freedom advocates have been on defense," he stated. "It’s time to go on offense."

Yeah, "education freedom advocates" surely haven't been vocally and aggressively attacking public education for the past umpteen years. Organizations funded by powerful billionaires have been after public education for decades, while simultaneously claiming to be David up against Goliath. Sure. One of the key pieces of the right wing pitch is to complain about being oppressed and outmatched.  

That's especially a claim of the christianist nationalism crowd, and those are Heritage's people. The Phoenix Declaration is itself a fine example of how to take a few values that ought to be unobjectionable and, by surrounding them with a particular context, make them icky.

Every child should have access to a high-quality, content-rich education that fosters the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful, so that they may achieve their full, God-given potential. America’s schools must work alongside parents to prepare children for the responsibilities of adulthood, including their familial and civic responsibilities, by cultivating excellence in mind and heart.

See? A few sentences from the introduction seem mostly on point. Except that phrases like "the good, the true, and the beautiful" and "work alongside parents" are recognizable dog whistly phrases; if you aren't in with the Heritage crowd, you might not get what they have in mind (we'll get to that). "Responsibilities" comes up twice, and hints at a grim "buckle down and get to work" view of life. Likewise, the pursuit of "excellence in mind and heart" is a little off for a life goal (I don't see a lot of scripture in which Jesus exhorts folks to be excellent). None of it is objectionable, and yet... In particular, all of these point toward being directed by outward measures.

Schools should equip students with the knowledge, character, and skills necessary to succeed in life as individuals and to fulfill their obligations as members of their families, local communities, and country. In order to empower families, advance educational excellence, transmit our culture, and uphold the foundational principles of our constitutional republic, we believe the following principles should guide American families, schools, and policymakers

"Obligations." And "transmit our culture." Education isn't to serve the interests of the human students, but to make them useful meat widgets. 

Well, maybe it gets better. Let's look at the actual principles.

Parental Choice and Responsibility

Parents are the "primary educators" of their children and should be free to choose "the learning environments that align with their values" and best meet the child's needs. This language of parental rights sounds so much nicer than "Educating the child is the parents' problem, and the rest of us shouldn't have to worry about it or pay for it." On top of being selfish, it's also short-sighted. 

And it's not just that this principle is a justification for selfishness and privatization. Any policy that elevates the rights of parents and ignores the rights of the child is a dangerous policy, because not all parents are awesome. The majority of parents are just fine, but I can tell you stories, and so can every other teacher, of parents who were a danger to the safety and well-being of their children. Children are not chattel, and making loud noises about a parent's "right and high duty" doesn't turn young human beings into property. 

Nor do I think that anyone at all is served by learning environments that teach the flat earth or extol the greatness of nazis. 

Parental "rights" without guardrails is both an excuse to privatize education and to abdicate collective responsibility for making sure that each young human has a shot at an education that doesn't suck.

Transparency and Accountability

The concern here is for parents. "Schools, as secondary educators, should work with parents, not attempt to serve as replacements for them," which is a good thought as long as those parents don't pose a threat to the safety or well-being of the children. The principle especially mentions "misguided policies that hide information from parents" about student mental, emotional or physical well-being, which is a dodge, because what we're really talking about here is what to do when students want to hide information from their parents, and the idea that children have no rights and parents have all of them. Schools have no rights over students; they do, however, have a responsibility to protect students, and in a country where the vast number of homeless children are homeless because their parents threw them out for being LGBTQ, that's not always an easy call.

Are there schools where staff have gone a step too far? Sure, just as there are parents who go a step too far. This will never be an easy issue to litigate, and anyone who thinks they have a simple answer (Either parents or the school are always right) is just wrong.

Truth and Goodness

I'm going to quote this whole part, because this is the shaky foundation on which the whole wobbly house rests.

Education must be grounded in truth. Students should learn that there is objective truth and that it is knowable. Science courses must be grounded in reality, not ideological fads. Students should learn that good and evil exist, and that human beings have the capacity and duty to choose good.

God save us all from people who believe there is one Truth, and they personally know what it is.  Teaching The Truth rather than teaching truth fundamentally changes the whole act of education into something else, something that does not serve anyone, not even the people trying to peddle their particular Truth.

Too often the idea that Truth can be known is delivered by someone who believes they know it. Here Heritage just hints at all the attendant problems. "Science courses must be grounded in reality, not ideological fads" is a fine argument for favoring evolution over creationism in the classroom, but I'm betting that's not what they had in mind. And the notion that humans ought to choose good over evil is not wrong, but it's useless, because everyone thinks they're choosing good-- as they see it.

What Heritage wants to argue for is education that is grounded in their idea of reality and which adheres to their view of good. Let's just skip any debate about whether they are right or not--they are sure they're right and people who disagree with them are wrong and that should be the end of it.

Cultural Transmission

Heritage argues that transmitting accumulated human wisdom and the particular culture and heritage of a country as the "central purpose" of education, but again they assume that "what is our culture" has a single known answer. They are arguing for one particular version-- "America’s founding principles and roots in the broader Western and Judeo-Christian traditions"-- of culture, as if that culture has not changed on a yearly basis, as if that culture is not informed by constant debates about what it is, as if there aren't a whole world of roots outside "Western and Judeo-Christian traditions."

Yes, education is absolutely part of transmitting and preserving culture. But the Heritage track record suggests that what they really mean is stripping the current culture of all those influences that aren't supposed to be there and restoring it to some sort of factory setting from an imaginary golden age. And that is the opposite of cultural preservation and transmission; it's locking down a preferred culture and trying to stifle its natural growth and change. 

Character Formation

Education should, in fact, prepare children "for the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood," though it would be nice if it also prepared them for the joys and beauty of human life. Thing is, there's a whole body of work intended to formally include character education-- it's social and emotional learning, the SEL that Heritage really hates. Education, they say here, should cultivate "virtues and discipline." As if the list of virtues is an immutable knowable objective thing, and not subject to arguments over virtues such as empathy.

Academic Excellence"Schools should help students achieve their full potential, going as far and as fast as their talents will take them." Well, yeah. Yeah, also, to content-rich curriculum. "No fads or experimental teaching methods." Sure. Academic excellence should be the focus. Can we get rid of the Big Standardized Test now?

Citizenship

I cannot object to a call for "an educated and patriotic citizenry," even though I know none of us will agree on what those terms actually mean, though it's clear that Heritage means that patriotic citizens agree with Heritage politics-- "ordered liberty, justice, the rule of law, limited government, natural rights, and the equal dignity of all human beings." But I'm pretty sure that Heritage's beef here is not with guys like me but with...well. they call for schools to "cultivate gratitude for and attachment to our country and all who serve its central institutions" and call for honest history that still shows that "America is a great source of good in the world." Might want to check with President Musk and Dear Leader on those.



The Phoenix Declaration is artfully done (it should be--the drafting committee contains 15 folks, some of whom are pretty smart). Some of it is silly (a call to put the pledge back in classrooms) and much of it uses broad enough terms that everyone can agree with what it says even as they totally disagree about what it means. It blows its anti-woke dog whistle hard enough to awaken the oldest, deafest labrador, and it skips over some of its biggest self-contradictions-- parents should have their choice of a school that matches their values, but all schools should be based on the values listed here. It also has a curiously dour and joyless view of education (and life), an old man waving his fist at clouds while complaining about all the lazy wokey Kids These Days.

But mostly it assumes that all reasonable Americans see it this way, and while it name checks "civil disagreement" at one point, it doesn't particularly embrace pluralism or diversity as American virtues and values.

The folks who signed off on this run the ideological gamut from A to B. Kevin Stitt, Manny Diaz, Frank Edelblut, Corey DeAngelis, Jim Blew, and folks from Hillsdale College. Institutions include the 1776 Project Foundation, Parents Defending Education, the Center for Christian Virtue, and the United States Christian Network.

Do I think this is some sort of attempt to put a fig leaf over the christianist nationalist version of education? Not really. I'm not entirely sure who the audience for the declaration is supposed to be.

I don't think it's this slice of the right wing trying to pretend to be reasonable. I think this is them believing that they are reasonable and right, that their view of education is reasonable and proper, and if they just lay their core beliefs out without the usual purple prose and rhetoric (say, Heritage Foundation via Project 2025) they will, at the very least, provide their allies with a document that lets them point and say, "See? We're not so unreasonable." There's no fig leaf here, just some of the folks who usually are waving torches and writing anti-government manifestos like Project 2025, sitting down with some of their calmer brethren and trying to stay cool.

It's remarkably cool for a declaration that we live in a time of "moral and political crises," that promises to be a beacon back toward some vision of the central purposes of education. But as I've tried to point out in some instances, many of these words are open to a broad variety of interpretation, and the core belief "There is One Truth and I personally Know what it is" really gets in the way, particularly when that truth includes items such as "all reasonable people would agree with me" and its corollary "unreasonable people should shut up." So much of the declaration could mean anything, though its creators clearly have certain meanings in mind.

Maybe it's the created-by-committee problem. Maybe it would be better if Heritage just came out and said what they really mean; I mean, I generally think they're wrong, but at least it's usually easy to see what they mean. Even the choice of phoenix is vague-- what set the old bird on fire, and what are the ashes that this one is supposed to be rising from? Are we supposed to be following the light it gives to some other place, or following the light to the phoenix itself, which is...? It's an incomplete image. The phoenix is mythical and non-existent, which fits the affection for a golden time that never existed. But I can think of better birds for this declaration.

ICYMI: Where's Your Suit Edition (3/2)

The White House reached a new critical mass of bullshit this week with the public mugging of The Ukraine in favor of new bestie Russia. A lot has been written about it, and I won't be including any of that here because that's not what you come here for. But I do like to put down markers now and then so that later, I can tab back to special moments. After all, some day, someone is going to have to explain to future generations why the country couldn't keep its act together long enough for them.

Nobody can deal with all of it. But those of us who have been advocating for public education can keep doing that, because lord knows it's on the chopping block, just like every other piece of government that involves taking care of other people. So here we go. And I don't care if you're wearing a suit or not.

Children with disabilities swept up in DEI fight, advocates say

Lexi Cochran reports from Sioux City's KCAU about some of the collateral damage with the various diversity bans.

Why Are We Getting Rid of the Department of Education Again?

Jennifer Berkshire gets to the heart of the drive against DEI-- the real target is equality.

Cruel to Your School

Jennifer had a productive week. Here's a big picture piece about Trump's attack on public education that was published in The Baffler (and referenced in the above post).

Five Things Your Child’s Teacher Accomplished Last Week

President Musk managed to inspire Nancy Flanagan this week. What are five things teachers accomplished in your school?

U.S. Department of Education sued over letter on race-conscious practices in schools

A story I expect we'll be following for a while, as the courts try to figure out what the vague handwaving at race stuff is supposed to mean--and if it's even legal.

Michigan Department of Education responds to request to end 'racial preferences' or have federal funding cut

Meanwhile, Michigan's Department of Education actually pushed back on the directive.

To Make Ed Tech More Secure, Software Companies Need to Step Up

There's much to be concerned about in this The74 story, but "the average district now uses 2,592 edtech products" is certainly something.

School Choice Vouchers Led To Lower Academic Achievement, Researchers Say

Want some more research showing that vouchers lower test scores? Here you go.

Alabama’s Ten Commandment’s bill: A power grab disguised as faith

Bill Britt, editor of Alabama P{olitical Reporter, calls out the state's attempt to inject religion into classrooms.

Is it "Book Banning" to Ban Books?

Supporters of South Carolina's book banning laws are trying to support them. Syeve Nuzum points out how they are failing.

Most banned books feature people of color and LGBTQ+ people, report finds

Gloria Oladipo reports for the Guardian on the latest PEN America study that shows only certain sorts of books need to be banned--and it's not necessarily the sexy ones.

Florida: Where Essays are Both Written AND Graded By AI

No surprise here. Sue Kingery Woltanski reports that Florida's writing assessment, already a waste of time, is now approaching the singularity involving no humans at all.

What a 30-Day Break From AI Taught Me About My Teaching

Both depressing and encouraging, as this teacher figures out that maybe having ChatGPT do his thinking for him is not great.

Nobody's Business

Audrey Watters is essential reading every week on technology in ed (twice a week if you pay for your subscription) and it's always worthwhile. Here she opens with the quote "If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?"

Linda McMahon’s ‘Elegant Gaslighting’ of Democratic Senators

For The Progressive, Jeff Bryant has a great analysis of Linda McMahon's hearing.

Trump's expanded ICE raids are causing big problems for some schools

USA Today covers the mess created by sending armed police after children. Who could have predicted?

Teach Truth

Thomas Ultican gives us a look at a new book by Jesse Hagopian about the struggle for anti-racist education.

School Vouchers and the Threat to Religious Freedom

Anne Lutz Fernandez looks at a subject near and dear to my heart. Yes, it's bad for schools to have religion injected into them-- but it is also bad for religion to be commandeered by the state.

This week at the Bucks County Beacon, I wrote about a state auditor report that shows just how badly we in PA need cyber charter reform, and at Forbes, a survey that shows 40% of two year olds have their own digital devices. Yikes!

Do join me on substack, where my newsletter of stuff will always be free. 

OK: Vouchers For The Wealthy

Oklahoma voucherphiles pitched a tax credit scholarship program for years, with a variety of pretty promises.

In 2020, Senate President Pro Tempore tugged on heartstrings:

“Where there are kids that lack opportunity, my heart pains for them,” said Treat, R-Oklahoma City. “We need to make sure they are not forgotten.”

Expanding the program will get poor kids into religious schools, or help poor kids escape bullying. 

Governor Kevin Stitt pushed in 2023, proclaiming "Now we're gonna put the parents back in charge." Also, competition will raise all boats. And poor kids will be rescued. 

Yessiree-- the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program would help poor families get their kids into super duper private schools. "This is an every kid wins policy and funding plan," said House Speaker Charles McCall back in 2023, when the bill passed. 

Just barely. A similar bill tanked in 2022, opposed by rural Republicans who didn't want to see their schools drained of funding, and they didn't want to see taxpayer money going to unaccountable private schools. So the tax credit version was born. The idea was that instead of draining the general fund, taxpayers could contribute to vouchers instead of paying their taxes (which would, you know, cut revenue for the general fund.)

Lawmakers were a bit upset by what turned out to be the mechanics of the tax credit. They expected that it would come in the form of a line on tax returns (like any other tax credit). But no. In what may be the laziest attempt to maintain the fiction that these vouchers aren't a way to send public tax dollars to private religious schools, the Oklahoma system sends the voucher money directly to the school--but in a check that is made out to the parents. The parents come in to the school to endorse the check.

This baloney allows the Oklahoma Tax Commission to say, with a straight face, “No checks were issued by the Oklahoma Tax Commission to private schools."

Said some legislators, "We would not have voted for this if we thought this was how it was going to work." It took station KFOR to find out this was what was happening. 

Now the data shows there is yet another unfulfilled promise behind the vouchers. The OTC released details of who was receiving the voucher benefits.

30% of vouchers went to families making less than $75,000.

Slightly less went to families making between $75,000 and $150,000.

17% went to families making between $150,000 and $225,000.

And almost a quarter of the funds ($22.6 million) went to families making over $225,000 a year.

Oklahoma's median income is $60,000.

Governor Stitt told a press conference, "It's working like we wanted it."

State Rep. Melissa Provenzano said that the vouchers are going "overwhelmingly" to students already enrolled in private school. 

None of this should be remotely surprising, as it is exactly how vouchers have played out in other states. No mention yet about the students who were rejected by private schools. 

One thing sure to be a factor-- the voucher program immediately led to private schools hiking tuition prices. Ruby Topalian at The Oklahoman reported on the issue, offering as a specific example

The Parental Choice Tax Credit Program started in December, promising parents a tax credit of up to $3,750 per student for spring tuition. Global Harvest Christian School responded by raising its spring tuition to $3,500.

 Janelle Stecklein of Oklahoma Voice had some harsh words for the supporters of the program.

There’s a terrible stench that smells a lot like bull excrement emanating from the halls of our state Capitol right now, and Republicans are hoping that Oklahomans plug their nose and pretend their highly touted voucher-like program doesn’t stink to high heaven.

Many are also likely hoping that their constituents will suffer from a convenient bout of amnesia when it comes to recalling the promises made — and not kept — in 2023 about their Parental Choice Tax Credit Act.

As it turns out, Oklahomans were sold a sham when legislators sought to convince us why our hard-earned tax dollars should be used to pay for children’s private school educations even while their local public schools continue to struggle financially and academically.

And more to the point 

Legislators would have you forget that they want to use public money to continue to subsidize the costs of a small subset of rich children whose parents have fled the public school system that 700,000 children rely on. The exodus further exacerbates the gap between the haves and have nots.

To further rub salt in the wound, many private schools used the new “tax credit” to raise tuition. An Oklahoma Watch analysis found that about 12% of 171 participating private schools capped tuition rates near $7,500, the max a family can receive. Some schools raised tuition rates 100%.

At this point, there's no state legislator anywhere that has any excuse. All of these issues have well documented in each of the universal voucher states. Vouchers are an expensive entitlement for the wealthy that try to hide behind a fig leaf of helping a few select actual non-wealthy folks. 

But then, Stitt doesn't seem inclined to learn much from others' experience. He's busy these days touting a "path to zero" plan for cutting all state income taxes, having apparently missed the lesson of Sam Brownback's disaster trashing of Kansas in what turned out to be the ultimate debunking of supply-side economics. Good luck, Oklahoma. 

Common Core, Diversity, and the Lessons of Rebranding

The biggest unforced tactical error made by the folks behind the Common Core was giving it a brand name (well, second biggest, right behind creating a crappy bunch of standards in the first place). They added to this error by not sticking around to defend and gatekeep their brand. 

And before you could say "David Coleman is a twit," folks were slapping the Common Core brand on every stupid education thing they didn't like. Common Core supporters were increasingly frustrated about having defend their brand both from legitimate attacks and from stuff that was made up and unrelated to the actual standards.

They eventually caught on and dropped the actual brand in favor of vaguer language about college and career readiness. It's not snappy and makes for limp marketing, but it's also hard to poke back. It pushes everyone in the direction of arguing about whether or not Policy X actually helps students prepare for college and a career, and it lets us have pointed discussions about whether or not education should provide more than vocational prep (spoiler alert: it should). 

Right wing folks have been applying similar lessons for several years now. First it was shortening Black Lives Matter to BLM, then turning around to apply BLM to anything they found objectionable. Then it was Critical Race Theory (again, shortened to CRT, because initials can mean anything) and a ploy that was so transparent because Chris Rufo announced explicitly what he would do-- take the term and redefine it to mean "anything anyone might object to." 

As he infamously tweeted, "The goals is to have the public read something crazy in the news and immediately think 'critical race theory.' We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans."

So now it's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-- again, more easily attacked as initials. Adam Conover (the Adam Ruins Everything guy) has a post in Bluesky today that gets to the point:

The attack on DEI shows why liberals should stop arguing about "strategic" use of language forever. DEI stands for three uncontroversial virtues that most every American accepts, and the right still turned it into a vile slur. It doesn't matter what you say - they will poison it because YOU said it.

— Adam Conover (@adamconover.net) February 27, 2025 at 8:19 PM

So now the feds are bringing a full-on attack on DEI to schools, including a website for turning in a teacher or school "to report illegal discriminatory practices" to the education department, because "DEI" means whatever they want it to mean. 

In fairness, a generation of half-assed, ill-considered corporate DEI programs had already sullied the brand. But it wouldn't have mattered, any more than it mattered that critical race theory was never really discussed outside of university classrooms. Branding creates a shorthand that cuts both ways. Just as critics can attack and redefine the label while ignoring what it stands for, schools and corporations can pay lip service to DEI without addressing the values it's supposed to represent.

Rebranding is no solution. The far right is already anticipating that, pre-emptively feinting at SEL. Vice-President Trump already warned that attempts to rebrand DEI would be punished. All labels, all branding, have the same built-in weakness.

It's time to unbrand. Let's just talk about diversity. Make the opponents of diversity (because that's what they are) explain why they are against persons who are not like them. Let them explain in plain words that they are against anything that doesn't result in their domination of diverse persons. Let them explain why a school that serves a diverse student population should act as if it does not. 

It will not settle things quickly or easily. They're going to argue that we should focus on what unites us ("get behind me and agree with me") and recognizing diversity just highlights differences. Diversity is a historical strength of this country, but not everyone sees it that way. Make them say why. 

Instead of getting sucked into arguments about what DEI "really" means, argue about those things. Never mind DEI-- tell me why you're opposed to being inclusive in this school, and while you're at it, point out to me the students who shouldn't be included and tell me why. 

Create programs that recognize the many different sorts of students in the school, create ways to make sure they get the education they deserve, and actively seek to make them part of the school. And don't brand these programs with a snappy name. Stand up for the values and principles. Labels are just convenient targets. 

Department of Education Has a Diversity Tattling Site

The Department of Education wants you to narc on all the ideologies and indoctrinaters out there in your local school district, because apparently the folks currently operating what's left of the department are unfamiliar with the internet.

The website has the nifty url enddei.ed.gov, and its text is short and... well, it's short. Under a big bold heading "Schools should be focused on learning," we get this copy:

The U.S. Department of Education is committed to ensuring all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination. This submission form is an outlet for students, parents, teachers, and the broader community to report illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning. The Department of Education will utilize community submissions to identify potential areas for investigation.

The press release for this portal comes with a quote from Tiffany Justice, one of the co-founders of Moms for Liberty, a group well-known for its interest in civil rights for all:

“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies—but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” said Tiffany Justice, Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty. “Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents.”

It's all one more trip through the looking glass to that magical land where the only civil rights that are being damaged are put-upon conservative christianist white folks, where a four star general and an experienced naval officer are DEI hires, but a mediocre talk show host is a champion of merit. 

But now this thing exists. Fill in your email, your school district name, the zip code, and your description of whatever "discriminatory practice" is making you feel bad. You can even attach a file, and do your part to stop whatever illegal discrimination against straight white males is going on in your neighborhood. 

We have seen this movie before. Previous Lt. Governor and Current Failed Candidate Mark Robinson tried this stunt in North Carolina, and Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin tried it in Idaho. Oh yeah-- Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita tried it just last year. These are the kind of performative actions one can expect from middle aged people who are not familiar with how the collective wisdom of the internet works (Hey there, Boaty McBoatface). They ended poorly. 

Who knows-- maybe the site will bring in all sorts of serious posts from people leaping to defend students from being taught Scary History or Naughty Books or Things That Make Certain People Clutch Their Pearls. Maybe it will have the desired effect of chilling classrooms and making teachers think twice before they commit crimes against the Cultural Revolution. 

But what it deserves is to drown in reports that treat the anti-diversity initiative with all the respect it deserves. After all, witch hunts have historically always turned out well for this country. 

At any rate, here's the site. It's right here. So if you have anything to report, just click on this link. I trust you to do the responsible thing.

Crypto-Education

I have put off trying to educate myself about cryptocurrency, but finally gave in, read a book, and golly bob howdy, if it isn't the same guys, the same grift, and the same bullshit as education privatization.

The book was Easy Money: Cryptocurrencym Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, written by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman, and if McKenzie's name sounds vaguely familiar, that's because you used to watch The OC on which he played Ryan. But before he was an actor, McKenzie graduated from the University of Virginia magna cum laude with a degree in economics and foreign affairs. Silverman is a journalist who covers tech, crypto and politics. 

The book is tied together by the narrative of McKenzie's growing interest and his concurrent growing sense that crypto was an emperor with no clothes, a burning building for which nobody was pulling the alarm. It's clear, compelling, and easy to understand even for those of us with no economics background. 

It is also, if you've been deep in the education debates, oddly familiar, sometimes in ways that I found illuminating. Familiar themes include--

Techbro awesomeness

The techbros driving the movement are absolutely certain that they Know How It Is, that they possess all the wisdom and know-how to engineer a complete replacement for the system already in place. People who stick up for that system are just showing that they aren't as smart as the bros. See also: Bill Gates on education. 

Ignorance of the past. 

If you're smarter than everyone, you don't have to listen to anyone, including people who know the history of the field you want to disrupt. The techbros driving the movement are sure they are pioneering bold new uncharted territory. "Behold! I have invented a new piece of technology! I shall call it [drum roll] The Wheel!!" 

But as the authors point out, the idea of launching a "decentralized" currency backed by nothing but charm and big brass balls has been tried in this country back in the mid-19th century. Spoiler alert: it did not work. See also: Mr. Lancaster's System by Adam Laats.

Frauds and scamsters

McKenzie and Silverman mention several times that having been scammed is seen as a regular and normal part of the crypto landscape. It is so pervasive that most of the folks they talked to freely talked about their own losses as if being scammed was a rite of passage. The underlying assumption-- that scammers and fraudsters are just part of the price of "freedom" and that it's up to the marketplace to do their homework and avoid getting fleeced. Fraud is how we know we're really free, I guess.  See also: complaints that school choice must not be hampered by regulation or oversight.

Lies about Decentralization and Power

Crypto is supposed to do away with the idea of money controlled by some central authority-- "government money," if you will. The power will be decentralized, declare crypto stans. Except that it isn't so much decentralized as simply moved. And it's not moved to the people who will supposedly benefit, but to a new, small set of people. And unlike a government, these people do not have to answer to anyone. They do, however, use the power and money they accumulate to make sure that elected officials and legislators stay friendly. 

But the notion that this disruption is somehow creating more freedom and opportunity for the ordinary citizen is a fiction. Instead, by removing a trusted third party, they create an unregulated marketplace where the real power is in the hands of a few rich folks, and the average person is a sheep ripe for shearing--and no recourse should such a shearing happen. Without a trusted third party in the mix, the rich and powerful are free to set rules that serve them. See also: the entire school voucher biz.

Some of the stories are just astounding, like the folks who lost millions of dollars because when market fluctuations became extreme and investors went to cash in, the exchange simply shut down so that they couldn't until the moment had passed. Yes, crypto shares certain folks' naive faith in tech. 

McKenzie and Silverman travel through many of the halls of crypto-land and talk to many of the major players (some of whom are remarkably willing to reveal to talk). In the end, you have to conclude that however bad, scammy, and fraudulent you thought crypto might be, it is probably way worse than that. And many of its worst features echo the school privatization movement. 

Crypto uses the language of known, trusted stuff-- it's "currency" and "coin"-- to get folks to offer trust to something that has no basis in anything other than its creators' will to make something out of thin air that can be used as a foundation for grift. Sure, there are some people involved in good faith, but the whole edifice is built on smoke and mirrors. 

Radical Solution to NAEP Score Drop

Some real outside the box thinking here.

The NAEP results have been a big talking point, a way to trumpet the "failure" of the public school system. Will changes in US schools raise the scores? 

We may never know, because the NAEP is now one more victim of Trusk spending cuts.

“The U.S. Department of Education has decided not to fund the NAEP 2024-2025 Long-Term Trend Age 17 assessment,” Marcie Hickman, project director of the NAEP Support and Service Center, said in an email to state officials. “All field operations and activities will end today, February 19, 2025.”

I would have expected more squawking, but so far only The74 and Education Week have reported on this. 

The test is federally mandated, which means President Musk shouldn't be able to legally cut it off, but we all know how much that means these days. Ed Week reports that "the decision appears to have been made without the approval of the National Assessment Governing Board," which seems about par for the course. 

What has actually been canceled at this point is the test for 17-year-olds that was supposed to happen in the near future. Nobody seems to really know whether this cancellation will also affect all other future NAEP testing, but since Musk has gutted financing for the Institute of Education Sciences, the data wing of the education department, it sure doesn't look good.

So much for all those fun conversations folks were going to have while parsing the test scores and arguing about what they meant for public schools in a post[sic] pandemic world. 

Regular readers know that I have no deep love for Big Standardized Tests, but the whole School Criticism Industry has depended on these scores, and I don't know what the heck they're going to do with themselves without the data.

Perhaps the next phase will involve the Musk Method that has been used so expansively in the DOGE process. Never mind talking to experts, don't try to look at actual data, but just kind of eyeball things and make declarations based on how you personally feel about it, unhampered by any actually reality. Boy, those are going to be some fun times. 

AI Techno-Bullshit

Like most folks, I can no longer complete the simplest written objective without some degenerate descendant of Clippy trying to butt in. Want to wish a friend a Happy Birthday on Facebook? There's already a draft completed. Did someone just email you? Here's a selection of replies you can send. Writing a document? Sure you don't want some help with that?

No, no, and no. In fact, now I'm going to craft a Happy Birthday wish that not only says "Happy Birthday," but also "I took the trouble to do more than just click on the pre-written wish."

Words matter, and how we use them matters. The deepest existential challenge of being human is that we are consciousness, ideas, feelings, memories and grasping comprehensions, all trapped in a singular isolated body with no way to directly communicate or share any of what we are to any of the other meat-trapped spirits in the world. Over millennia we have crafted art, music, movement and, most of all, language to try to bridge that unfathomable gulf between human beings. 

So, yeah. Language is a big deal to me. It is how we are our best selves, how we are fully human in the world. It is how we access love and trust and the impossible beauty of connection with creation. 

And like any powerful tool, it can be misused. A hammer can build a house or break a window. Language can be used to lie. 

There are plenty of shades and shapes and definitions of lying (omission, commission, white, dark, etc) but for me, it comes down to this-- communicating things you don't believe are true in order to control somebody else's behavior. I like the wikipedia definition of bullshit-- "statements made by people concerned with the response of the audience rather than with truth and accuracy."

Our country is used to being awash in bullshit, from the casual lies of marketing to political lies-of-all-size. No, my congressperson did not personally send me an e-mail because they are alarmed and want to hear form me, and no, the US wasn't winning the Vietnam War, and no, Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. No, that's not what that famous person really looks like. 

The explosion of technology has given us whole new gushing rivers of communication, and that turns out to mean bullshit with an intensity, frequency, and quantity unlike anything ever seen before. Use tech to collect tons of data that reveals where peoples' buttons are, then craft some techno-bullshit to push those buttons. It looks like communication, like human beings trying to bridge the gap between them, but it is not. It is something else, something morally empty. It's a lie.

It becomes most obvious when we consider that most modern form of lying-- trolling.

Trolling is anti-communication. It is a simple observation-- when I say or do X, people jump. Somebody throws up a white power ok symbol or, hell, an actual Nazi salute, and a host of people mistake this for an attempt to communicate. Is this guy really a fascist? Is he not really a fascist? The question is beside the point--he's a guy who has figured out that if he makes this symbol, a whole bunch of folks freak out and react and he has some by God power over them. He can make the puppets dance, and feel powerful inside his sad little isolated meat sack. 

It's an exhilarating lesson-- your words don't have to mean anything exactly in order to get reactions out of people. Or they can mean many things. Or they can mean what you decide they mean. Language isn't a means of bridging the gap between yourself and others; it's a tool for manipulating those others. It's a weapon for exerting control. Once you let go of the idea that words are supposed to mean something, that language is supposed to be anchored within you on your own truth and intention, you are ride the Nihilism Express all the way to the Land of Do As You Please.

Generative AI, chatbots, Large Language Models make excellent tools for bullshit. Where most humans have to work to disconnect their language from anything in their actual consciousness, LLMs arrive fully unmoored from any such baggage, making them excellent tools for creating language-shaped sticks with which to poke other humans. Computers and technology have a useful place, but it's up to humans to decide where to find the limits.

Language disconnected from a human intent or consciousness is a morally empty exercise. I don't mean to suggest that everyone who disconnects in this way is evil or even terrible, but I do think they've lost the plot. For people who have lost that plot, who have drifted over to thinking that language is mostly a tool one uses to prod other humans in a particular direction, LLMs will seem like a perfectly natural next step. If you're not using language for personal, conscious, intentional expression, then why not outsource the job?

For those who think our human task is not to communicate with other humans, but to dominate and subjugate them, language generated by algorithm must seem like the ultimate refinement of language-as-tool. When Mike Johnson excitedly tells us that Elon has "cracked the code" and algorithms will crawl through the data and "transform the way the federal government works," these must be exciting times. "Data," he says Elon told him, "doesn't lie." But automated language does, and easily, at that. 

Automated language production is by its nature disconnected from human intent and consciousness, and as such is not a means of communication, but a tool for other things, like various forms of bullshittery, manipulation, and trolling. Maybe there's a non-zero number of times that this is okay. Maybe. At a point in our history when bad actors have shown a willingness to reduce language to a tool for separating rather than connecting humans, quick and easy morally empty mimicry of human communication is worrisome.

The undermining starts early. On social media, a teacher opined that since her students have trouble coming up with ideas, she just has them ask ChatGPT for essay ideas, as if the actual thinking part of writing is a minor feature barely worth considering. The calls to incorporate AI into the classroom is loud and relentless, a cacophony of marketing bullshit marketing marketing bullshit.

Maybe some of it is Not So Bad, like the miles of AI-generated marketing bullshit that is replacing and outpacing old fashioned human-generated marketing bullshit. Maybe there are social conventions that merely require an exchange of language-adjacent artifacts. maybe some folks really want to be governed by AI instead of other humans. 

But it's both scary and sad. Here we are, vibrating spirits in our isolated fleshy vessels, trying so hard to connect with other humans because it helps us understand the world and it helps us understand ourselves and it fulfills a basic human need to see and be seen. How shitty to grab one of those bridges of language and discover at the other end... nothing. Not a consciousness to be seen and heard, nothing but dead empty eyes staring not at you, but at nothing, and no connection to make at all. I can't help thinking it is a misuse of a fundamental human feature. 

I often describe education as the process of becoming your best self, discovering what it means to be fully human in the world. It seems, to me, to be the most foundational human activity, and yet so much of what surrounds us seems designed to thwart it, from authoritarian mock versions of leaders to empty technological mock humans. 

What to do? Be human. Search for your truth and then put it out into the world, aimed at other humans. Make real connections. When you see bullshit, point and laugh. Try to stay true; I know that's not always easy, but as I used to tell my students, life is too short to sign your name to a lie. This is not woo-woo fuzzy advice, but a down-in-the-dirt practical goal-- more practical than believing in magical algorithms that create the illusion of human interaction with no humanity attached.

ICYMI: George's Birthday Edition (2/23)

Okay, George Washington's birthday was yesterday (or actually the 11th by the old calendar), but it seems like a good time to remember the guy who, for all his faults, argued that he should not be crowned king and not allowed to serve more than two terms as President. Just saying. George would be 293 today.

Here's your list for the week. Remember, you can be an amplifier. Share posts. Subscribe to folks-- even if it's a free subscription, you increase their digital footprint. 

The White House said book bans aren’t happening. Now JD Vance’s memoir is a target.

Hillbilly Elegy, besides being poverty porn, has plenty of naughty words and even recognizes that LGBTQ persons exist. Cue the Department of Defense purge.

Trump's Education Agenda is Unpopular

Jennifer Berkshire must have calluses from beating this drum so hard, but she's right-- look at conditions on the ground and you find that even the people who love Trump don't love his ideas about education.

Trump Is Not Taking the State Out of Public Schools, He Is Putting Christianity In

Anne Lutz Fernandez looks at the MAGA religious agenda for K-12. 

The SC House Debates Education and School Vouchers

Steve Nuzum reports on education debates in the South Carolina House, which include the usual unsubstantiated slander of teachers--but also people on the far right who oppose the universal voucher bill.

It Is Fun to Pretend That Hard Things Are Easy!

Dan Meyers on an online platform that promises to teach you math 4x faster. Yay, miracles!

Why Education Reformers Will Find a Home in the Trump Administration

Jeff Bryant takes a look at continued upward fail that is Penny Schwin's career. Seasoned reformster or common grifter, Schwinn shows what kind of ideas are running Dear Leader's education policy.

Strange Science of Reading Law Suit

Thomas Ultican pulls up the background on the first-of-its-kind lawsuit meant to support the Science [sic] of Reading folks. 

Bad Words in Schools

Do you subscribe to Nancy Flanagan's blog yet? Because you should. Here's her musing about what words are or are not okay in school these days.

Automated Contempt

It is a mistake to call Audrey Watters simply the ed tech Cassandra. She has an outstanding ability to connect the dots between many different pieces of history, technology, and culture. Her posts are also full of excellent links, like this one, that mulls on how well the inhumanity of AI fits the inhumanity of the political moment.

Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts at the Department of Education are already harming North Carolina’s most vulnerable students

Justin Parmenter reports from North Carolina on some of the real effects of President Musk's chainsaw work. 

What Did We Learn from Linda McMahon’s Confirmation Hearing?

Jan Resseger provides an excellent digest of observations from Linda McMahon's confirmation hearing for the Secretary of Education post. No good news here, but forewarned and all that.

The War on Learning: How Politicians Are Dismantling Education—And How We Fight Back

Julian Vasquez Heilig on fighting for academic freedom and inclusive education.

There IS Proof Knowledge Works. And It's Overwhelming.

Yes, this is from Robert Pondiscio, a long time part of the AEI/Fordham axis of reforminess. He and I disagree on some stuff, and agree on some other stuff, and one part of the other stuff is the idea that content knowledge matters when it comes to reading (and learning). 

The Josiah Bartlett Center takes a beating.

New Hampshire libertarians have had a rough couple of weeks. Andru Volinsky explains some of what's actually going on.

Senator Simon’s SB166: Administrative Efficiency in Public Schools

Could Florida actually do something to help public schools? Anything is possible. Sue Kingery Woltanski explains what the bill could do.

Parents at Army base in Stuttgart say students grappling with new school rules

Stars and Stripes has been covering the effects of federal anti-diversity measures on Department of Defense schools. John Vandiver takes a look at Stuttgart, where nobody is sure what the rules are, but some students are pretty sure they're being erased.

Educators calculate their risks in class as states escalate anti-DEI pressure

The Southern Poverty Law Center looks at some teachers who are navigating the new racist restrictions on education. Can you teach Black history and keep your job?

Who is a cognitive scientist?

Benjamin Riley considers what cognition is, and who counts as a scientist studying it.

Boston Herald, Pioneer Institute, and Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance Push Great Replacement Theory

You know what's not great for education? Treating Those Peoples' Children as interlopers who are out to replace proper white folks. And yet here's The Boston Globe, a major newspaper, pushing the Great Replacement Theory. Maurice Cunningham has the story.

“I’m Afraid We Are Automating This Work Without Really Understanding It”

Gretchen Gravatt talks to Allison Pugh about using AI to replace human connective labor.

The Department of Government Exploitation

The current administration's rush to privatize everything is, of course, pretty familiar to folks in the education world. Conor Lynch at Truthdig explains what's up here. For instance, the federal workforce actually hasn't increased since the 1950s. The number of private subcontracts on the other hand...

If the ultra-rich want to escape from reality — good riddance

Troy Farah's Salon piece can get a little harsh for my tastes, but it does include this Douglas Rushkoff  quote--

they have succumbed to a mindset where “winning” means earning enough money to insulate themselves from the damage they are creating by earning money in that way. It’s as if they want to build a car that goes fast enough to escape from its own exhaust.

This week at Forbes.com I wrote about the Texas conservatives who hate hate hate Greg Abbott's voucher bill.

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Rest Well, Dr. Zolbrod

Word came this morning that Paul Zolbrod passed away yesterday. May his memory be a blessing.

Dr. Zolbrod first taught me when I was a freshman at Allegheny College. It was one of those survey course that English majors, even English majors at a liberal arts school, must take--the first half of a survey of British Literature. 

That was fifty-ish years ago. I dug out some musty folders of old college papers this morning, and it is amazing how many of my professors I have forgotten, past even the point of look-at-the-name-and-oh-now-I-remember. But I never forgot Dr. Zolbrod. He was one of the teachers who shaped my entire career.

Dr. Zolbrod had several rare gifts as a teacher. There was the more typical gift of helping you see why the material was interesting and compelling. He challenged you to really think through stuff, which was a welcome new challenge. College was the first time I understood that there were two basic flavors of literature teachers-- those who would listen to any interpretation as long as you could back it up with evidence and reason, and those who knew the One True Interpretation and expected you to spit that back. Dr. Zolbrod was the former, and sitting in his class solidified for me which kind I wanted to be.

Dr. Zolbrod was no pushover when it came to grading papers, but somehow, when I left his office after talking about the crappy paper I'd just gotten back, I felt good about myself. I could see where I'd missed the boat, but I also could see the strengths that I was going to carry into the next one.

As Facebook has filled up with tributes to him, I see multiple versions of what I wrote-- He could see possibilities in you that you could not see in yourself. It was so energizing and empowering. It would have been easy for him to make me feel stupid; instead, he made me feel smart and capable and I promised myself that I would try to do that for the students I hoped to teach some day. 

Dr. Zolbrod gave us a choice-- write a final paper, or go teach a unit about one of the works in the middle school down the hill from the college. I jumped on that opportunity, and later he set me up with the chance to teach several weeks' worth of Beowulf to gifted third graders. It was exciting to get a taste of the work, and he made that happen.

He retired from Allegheny in 1996 and moved to New Mexico where he kept teaching and focused on the work he had been doing for years with the Navajo Creation Story. He had started out in Pittsburgh, served in the military, looked at the student radicalism of the 60s, published a variety of works, and really never stopped displaying curiosity and engagement with life (here's a remarkable interview he gave when he turned 90). As his daughter wrote, 

He looked so closely at what was around him , whether it was the sun rising over the mesa, the woods on a morning walk on Rogers Ferry, the arches of the churches in Tuscany, the weave of the Navajo rugs he studied. And he paid such careful attention to the people he interacted with, especially to working people, with whom he closely identified. And of course, he read so deeply, and listened so intently to oral recountings and to music. He was so engaged with history of places, including Crawford County, where my brother and I grew up, and with ideas, and the way they intersected. He wanted to capture all of it. The soundtrack of my childhood was the clackety clack of his manual typewriter coming from his basement office.

I connected with him, like many of his former students, on Facebook, where he shared personal recollections as well as thoughts and insights about the world unfolding. It was miraculous to me that he remembered me, had followed some of my teaching career, and read some of my writing about education. 

Dr. Zolbrod is one of a handful of people who were an inspiration and a model for me as a teacher; I was a better teacher because of him. The world is a better place because he was in it. Condolences to his family. May his memory continue to be a blessing. 

Trump Okays More Charter Waste

At this point, we have more than a few examples of how President Musk's DOGEry is most certainly not about reducing federal waste and fraud. But if you would like a very clear, specific example, let's take a look at the latest decree about charter schools.

The federal Charter School Program has been shelling out grants to launch and expand charter schools since 1994. Analysis of the program by the Network for Public Education shows that one out of every four taxpayer dollars handed out by CSP has been wasted on fraud and/or failure. That means of the roughly 4 Billion-with-a-B dollars handed out by the feds, roughly 1 Billion-with-a-B dollars have gone to charters that closed swiftly, or never even opened in the first place.

The Biden administration (with no small amount of prodding) eventually put some additional rules in place for CSP-- crazy stuff like "find out whether there's any need or desire for the charter school before you open it up"-- and that was followed by howls of outrage from folks in the charter biz. The rules were modest and sensible, but still could have saved a bit of taxpayer money from a program that was wasting a huge pile of money.

So, the current administration could have said, "Cool! You got some fraud and waste spotted and targeted before we even got here. Excellent. Thanks for the help in fighting federal fraud and waste."

That is not what happened.

Instead, yesterday the Department of Education issued an edict saying that the "unnecessary conditions and overly bureaucratic requests for information" would be stopped and that CPS would start handing out money more easily. 

It is certainly within the scope of an administration to "adjust" the rules for CSP-- they've been doing that for thirty years. There's just an extra level of irony from an administration whose signature claim is that they are going to protect taxpayer dollars from being wasted, As far as charter schools go, the Trusk administration declares Christmas every day. Take all the taxpayer dollars you want! Some waste is bad, but other waste is fully approved.