I Took The PragerU Unwoke Teacher Test

"Inspired by" Oklahoma's "America First Teacher Test, PragerU, the conservative propaganda mill, has a "Teacher Qualification Test," which, in their attempt to establish themselves as a player in the teacher cert game, is suddenly everywhere. Watch some of their videos, they invite, and then take the test-- "Pass, and you’ll earn your certificate—proving your commitment to truth and integrity."

Is this going to be as bad as I think it is? Let's dive in and see.

Step one is give them your personal info so they can add you to their mailing lists. Luckily, I have some contact info for just such an occasion.

So here we go. Thirty-four questions, which seems more than enough to determine if you're a real murican teacher or not. This will take a while, but I think we should get the full effect.

1) Cites Meye v. Nebraska and the right-wing-beloved Pierce v. Society of Sisters to ask who has the ultimate right to direct a child's education. Superintendent, board, federal ed department, or parents? I picked parents and it says that's correct!

2) What is the "fundamental biological distinction between males and females?" Guess we'll assume they mean humans. Two dilly choices (blood type?) plus personal preference and "chromosomes and reproductive anatomy." That's a choice between a straw man that minimizes the way a person comes to grips with their gender and an incomplete answer that skips over all the ways that chromosomes and anatomy do not clarify the issue. I pick blood type. "Sorry, that is not right. Try again." 

So this is not really a test, but a training. Cool.

3) How is a child's biological sex typically identified. Skip "parental affirmation of child's preference" and "personal feelings." "Visual anatomical observation and chromosomes" is the preferred answer here, and given the use of the word "typically," I don't even disagree.

4) Which chromosome pair determines biological sex in humans? Pretty sure the wrong answers here are all made up. XX/XY again skips some details, but it's what they want.

4) Why is the distinction between male and female considered important in sports and privacy? Choices are "For equity in minority communities," "To increase participation in sports, To enhance the self-esteem of transgender children, " or their winner, "To preserve fairness, safety, and integrity for both sexes." 

As I expected, this test is telling us a lot about what these folks think "the other side" thinks. Nothing here about letting children play sports to have fun with their friends.

6) Should teachers be allowed to express their own political viewpoints in order to persuade students to adopt their point of view? The question is rendered silly by the inclusion of a presumed motive. Wrong answers include "Yes, teachers have freedom of speech, too," "No, once you become a teacher, your freedom of speech in and out of the classroom is restricted," and "Yes, sometimes when the issues are civil rights and social justice." Correct answer is, "No, the classroom is no place for activism." Possible answers did not include "It's only okay when teachers are pushing christian nationalist views that we agree with or showing our propaganda-filled videos."

7) Asks about the Mahmoud case in which the Supremes gave parents the right to opt out of any lessons they disagree with. Some of these questions aren't really questions; just a chance to make a point.

8) First three words in the Constitution?

9) Why is freedom of religion important to America's identity? Correct answer here is "It protects religious choice from government control," which I guess is why outfits like Prager are jockeying for government contracts and approval so that they can have the government control the religious choices of their audiences. "Let the government decide what religion should be in schools" seems counterproductive here, and Prager is not going to approach that question.

10) What are the two parts of the US Congress? Yikes.

11) How many US senators are there?

12) Why do some states have more Representatives than others? Lots of complicated nuance here that could be considered, but no, it's just because of population.

13) What is the primary responsibility of the president's [sic] Cabinet [sic]? Yeah, we have some capitalization issues. "Praise him effusively and try to soothe the aching chasm where his soul should be" is not a possible answer, so I guess "advise the president [sic]" is how to go. 

14) Who signs bills into law? 

15) What is the highest court in the United States?

16) Which of the following "is a responsibility reserved only for citizens"? Jury duty, home ownership, paying taxes, or possess a driver's license? (It's jury duty)

17) Which of the following are explicitly listed in the bill of rights? Freedom of speech and religion, voting and public education, reproductive rights and healthcare, freedom from data collection and surveillance. Just Prager's little way of saying, "These are the things you are not entitled to." "Owning an automatic weapon that can kill twenty people in one minute" apparently didn't make this list.

18) What right does the Second Amendment protect? I spoke too soon. 

19) What is the supreme law of the US? These suckers want you to say "the Constitution." I give them points for including Presidential Executive Orders as a wrong answer, but clearly they are not up to date with Dear Leader's policy of "I am the President. I can do what I want."

20) Who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence?

21) When was the Declaration of Independence adopted? Take your pick of July 4 in several years, and note once again that John Adams was sure July 2 would be celebrated as Independence Day because that was they day the founders actually voted to sever ties with England. The paperwork was finished two days later. Sorry, John.

22) Primary reason colonists fought the British? To resist expansion of British empire, to maintain slavery, to resist taxation without representation, or to resist forced military service? This is prime Prager stuff here, lacking in any hint of nuance or depth and instead focusing on broad, simple answers that a six year old can easily retain. They think it's the tax one. Do not expect a follow-up about how the taxes were related to costs incurred by the French and Indian War.

23) First three presidents?

24) Who is called the "Father of Our Country"? Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., or George Washington?

25) What did the Emancipation Proclamation do? Now, Prager does like some detail in its handling of slavery, which it often characterizes as "not that bad." This question is to remind you that Lincoln only freed the slaves in the rebelling states.

26) What was Lincoln's primary reason for fighting the war? Two silly answers and a choice between abolish slavery and preserve the union, because Prager would like you to buy the Southern claim that the way was not about slavery. Bet the next question is not "why did the Southern states commit treason and insurrection?"

27) I win. Next they ask what Martin Luither King, Jr., was best known for. Advocating for segregation, the abolition of slavery, diversity, equity and inclusion, or racial equality under the law? See, even MLK didn't want that DEI stuff. He dreamed of a day when white guys would get jobs over Black guys just because they were better.

28) How did the cold war end? Weird set of answers. US won Cuban Missile Crisis? Russia invaded Ukraine? US, European Union, and Soviet Union signed peace treaty? Soviet Union collapsed? I have so many questions, like did they not hear JD Vance explain that all conflicts were ended by negotiations. But no, we're just meant to remember that capitalism will always beat communism, even when capitalism doesn't actually do anything. 

29) Who was President [finally got it right] during the Great Depression? 

30) What is the name of the national anthem?

31) Why are there thirteen stripes on the flag? 

32) Which national holiday honors those who died while serving in the military?

33) Which of the following is a phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance? Rule out the two obvious incorrect answers and you get a choice between "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" or "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Too late to change your answer for #6.

34) From whom does the US government derive its power? "The people" will have to do as a correct answer, as "certain people who are the true Americans" is not a stated option.

So, a combination of fourth grade civics questions, push-poll type questions designed to make a point rather than ask a question, and absolutely nothing about actual teaching, pedagogy or content knowledge. Throw in some LGBTQ panic and parent rights flapjackery. Also, a pitch for a contribution, and now their contact list is a little larger. I look forward to my snappy certificate certifying that while I may or may not know jack squat about teaching, I am at least knowledgeable about some part of the current culture panic. In the meantime, people who are only half paying attention will absorb the notion that PragerU has something to say about teachers in this country, which is a sad lie to have loose in the world. 

ICYMI: Up and Hobbling Edition (8/31)

So this week, I had some arthroscopic surgery and took delivery of a new desktop computer to replace the eight-year-old dysfunctional one. This will be good news for those of you who are really bothered by my typos, which are exponentially worse on the mobile office laptop. 

I've had this kind of surgery twice before. The first time was back in 1980 and back then the protocol was to put the leg in a cast and spend six weeks letting the muscles turn into limp spaghetti. Nowadays the protocol is use crutches for the first day and then get yourself in gear. So I am hobbling mightily and will be back to normal sooner or later. 

Meanwhile, as much as I bitch and moan about the annoyances of modern tech, I have to acknowledge that moving toa new machine has gotten way easier since last time. Here I was painstakingly offloading everything onto an external drive and then the new computer and the old computer just copied all of my stuff on their own. It was both creepy and massively labor- and time-saving.

We've got plenty for you to read this week. Here we go.

Is Public Education Over?

If you read just one thing on the list, read this. Jennifer Berkshire puts standardized testing and Democrats who run against public schools in their proper context.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Audrey Watters read Berkshire's piece, and she expands on the understanding that public education didn't get damaged all at once.

Parents Sue Open AI for ChatGPT’s Role in Son’s Suicide

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider brings us the story of an inevitable and necessary lawsuit. The court documents detail the chilling ways ChatGPT facilitated and encouraged a teen's suicide through multiple attempts.

Two Va. school districts sue U.S. Education Dept. in fight over gender policies

A couple of Virginia districts are suing the ed department over withholding funds. Washington Post has the story.

Florida education officials urge school districts to work around unions

Florida's new ed chief is just as big of a tool as the last one. Jeffrey Solochek reports for the Tampa Bay Times.

DeSantis appoints another failed Florida school board candidate

Also from Solochek at the Tampa Bay Times, a look at DeSantis's favor election-denying trick-- when the voters don't pick his favored school board candidates, he just puts the failed candidate on the board anyway. Because Democracy is stupid.

The Washington Post Celebrates The 20th Anniversary Of The New Orleans ‘Miracle’

Yes, WaPo did that. Lucking Fary Rubinstein is here to debunk that reality-impaired piece.

Dark money spending could overshadow local priorities for Denver schools

Mike DeGuire details how dark money is involved in Denver school board races.

Oakland Public Education Fund Questioned

Thomas Ultican pries apart some of the sources of funding one busy group in Oakland. You may not be in Oakland, but it's a good model for how these sorts of groups work.

Public Education Is in Trouble. Whose Job Is It to Fix It?

At EdWeek, a very practical piece about how district admins can help, and connections are important.

Kelly Nash Doubles Down on Call to Eliminate LGBTQ+ Alaskans as Daughter Runs for Public Office

How bad and ugly can it get for LGBTQ educators? Pretty bad and ugly. From Matthew Beck at The Blue Alaskan.

Is There Really a Decline in Pleasure Reading?

You've read the terrible news. Nancy Flanagan says maybe you don't need to get all depressed just yet.

ChatGPT Is Unoriginal—and Exactly What Humans Need (Dana Karout and Houman Harouni)

Okay, this is one I hadn't thought of. A guest post at Larry Cuban on a project that challenged students by showing them that what they came up with wasn't any better than what ChatGPT extruded. So, ChatGPT as a way to charge students with lack of creativity.

Claremont's Finances are Dire

Claremont, NH is in trouble, with a massive financial challenge caused by, apparently, some serious mismanagement. It's a lesson in how a district can go off the rails and a state can say, "Tough noogies." I'll confess I'm especially interested because these were my schools back in my K-3 years. Andru Volinsky has the story.

The Ramaswamy Education Cons

Stephen Dyer and David Pepper had a video conversation about Ramaswamy's education baloney in his run for Ohio office.

I Was A High School Teacher For Decades. This Is What Your Kids Will Lose If The Far Right Gets Its Way.

Nancy Jorgenson is a retired music teacher, and she has some objections to the notion that schools should just dispense facts and content.

Texas Businesswoman Wants to Open AI-Driven, Teacherless Cyber Charter School in Pennsylvania

MacKenzie Price, Alpha schools, and the 2 Hour Learning idea have all been back in the news lately, so I'm re-upping this piece I wrote in January about this well-connected pile of baloney.

Greetings from Your New Superintendent: Seven-Time WWE Champion, The Undertaker

Rob Shapiro at McSweeney's, where they get that perfect blend of comedy and tragedy.

As WA government officials embrace AI, policies are still catching up

NPR takes a look at Washington state's attempt to get all up in the AI in government. Some parts aren't working so well.

Neurosymbolic AI—not with a bang, but a whither?

Ben Riley makes sense of one more debate going on in the AI world. Read this and get smarter.

AI is ummasking ICE officers. Can Washington do anything about it?

Politico has this fun new story. 

This week at Forbes.com, I looked at a new NPE report on the charter school biz. 

Here's brand new music from an unlikely combo.

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The Legal Doctrine That Says Censorship Is a First Amendment Right

This is worth digging into the legal weeds because A) it's going to keep coming up and B) a Florida case successfully beat it.

When it comes to free speech, it's a topsy turvy country out there. Take the Alachua County School Board in Florida. They had a batch of parents doing that thing where they would protest a book by reading isolated excerpts in board meetings, going for shock value without context. The board is now in trouble for objecting to that language. Their attorney has given them guidelines to help them Be Better, including this one--

Merely offensive language is not enough. Comments when viewed as a whole must be obscene (crude, abusive, vulgar, pornographic or indecent).

In other words, the naughty speech the member of the public is delivering in the meeting must be considered in the larger context of their speech. Yes, the same naughty excerpt that they're reading without any consideration of the larger context of the complete work. The context of the quoting should be considered, but the context of the actual quote can be ignored. 

Also in the Free State of Florida, attorneys are working another theory by which the First Amendment is used to justify the suppression of First Amendment rights. 

The authors of And Tango Makes Three write in The Atlantic about this theory, deployed in their lawsuit over the banning of their book in Escambia Couty schools.

In casting about for a way to defend the ban, the school board landed on the theory that library books represent “government speech.” The government, the board explained, has its own First Amendment rights and must be allowed to speak as it wishes. Thus, it can remove any library book it finds objectionable for any reason.

This is a silly argument, but this isn't the first time it has been rolled out. The Supremes used it in 2009 in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, ruling that Pleasant Grove, Utah, could refuse to allow a certain monument in its park because "Placing a monument in a public park is government speech, so it is not controlled by the First Amendment." In other words, the government is exercising its own First Amendment rights when it refuses to let someone else speak. In 2015 they let Texas refuse to issue certain specialty license plates.

The government speech argument was used against libraries successfully this May in the wingnut-let First Circuit Court of Appeals issued a divided opinion that nobody can challenge the banning of books because that is government speech. It starts from the not unreasonable position that any library involves curation choice because no library can carry all the books in the world. 

Wrote Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan for the majority, "That is what it means to be a library—to make judgments about which books are worth reading and which are not, which ideas belong on the shelves and which do not. If you doubt that, next time you visit the library ask the librarian to direct you to the Holocaust Denial Section."

I'll give the theory high marks for honesty. But there are some issues here. First of all, I'm not sure librarians would agree that their job is to decide "which books are worth reading"-- there's also a hefty helping of "what the customers want to read." Sure, they are supposed to separate the junk from the better stuff. Duncan also throws in the old "if the library doesn't carry it, they can get it somewhere else," and I'm trying to imagine what act of government censorship that would not cover. 

This is some seriously upside-down thinking. The First Amendment is meant to prevent government censorship, not provide legal cover for it.

But if you want some excellent arguments against applying the theory of government speech to Florida-style library book bans, we need look no further than another Florida book ban case recently decided in  the US Middle District Court of Florida just a couple weeks ago. In his decision, Judge Carlos Mendoza pointed out several problems with the argument.

One was that the way Florida's book banning law is constructed, the bans constitute not government speech at all. Parents, Mendoza wrote, certainly have the right to object to “direct the upbringing and education of children,” but the government cannot “repackage their speech and pass it off as its own.”

Mendoza warned of the danger of the government speech doctrine, quoting from Matal v. Tam (a case about a band trying to register an offensive band name). 

But while the government-speech doctrine is important—indeed, essential—it is a doctrine that is susceptible to dangerous misuse. If private speech could be passed off as government speech by simply affixing a government seal of approval, government could silence or muffle the expression of disfavored viewpoints.

Mendoza considers other courts' viewpoints on the question of whether or not library book selection constitutes government speech, and the winning quote comes from the Eighth Circuit Court in GLBT Youth in Iowa Schools Task Force v. Reynolds:

The Eighth Circuit has soundly rejected the argument, stating: “if placing these [disparate] books on the shelf of public school libraries constitutes government speech, the State ‘is babbling prodigiously and incoherently.’”

The law does not, Mendoza argues, involve any sort of "expressive activity" by the government, but simply following a law that requires "the removal of books that contain even a single reference to the prohibited subject matter, regardless of the holistic value of the book individually or as part of a larger collection."

Perhaps this crazy-pants doctrine is going to work its way up to the Supremes (Mendoza's decision will undoubtedly be appealed), in which case who knows if they will cheerfully declare that the government's First Amendment rights include the right to take away citizens' First Amendment rights. It seems Mendoza may even have anticipated that journey, as he has quoted Justice Alito several times in his opinion. Here's hoping libraries survive this. 

TX: Replacing Tests With More Tests

Nobody likes the Big Standardized Test (well, except test manufacturers making a living from it), and periodically, someone comes up with a clever idea for addressing that dissatisfaction. Texas has come up with a particularly bad one.

Texas's Big Standardized Test is the STAAR (which does not stand for Some Tests Are Always Ridiculous or maybe Should Throw Away Any Results or even Stupid Tests' Asses Are Raggedy). And the STAAR has a troubled history including technical glitches and questions without correct answers and just losing crates of answer sheets and just not working. Or is not aligned with state standards. And after many years, still glitch like crazy.

A big STAAR highlight is covered in this piece by poet Sara Holbrook, a poet who discovered that A) her own work was being used on the STAAR test and B) she couldn't answer some of the questions about her own work.

After several years of struggling, STAAR went fully on line, which didn't help anything. As usual with the move to an online model, nobody seems to have paused to consider whether or not adding a computer interface to the test might add one more problem.

Now here comes SB 9 (and its companion, HB 8). It reimagines the Big Standardized Test as the Instructional Supportive Assessment Program and declares that the "primary purpose" of the program will be "to benefit the students of this state." And if that were true, it would be a smart move, because one of the problems with the BS Test has always been that it ignores the fact that a test can only really serve the single purpose for which it is designed. Instead states use the test for a multitude of purposes, so if the new law would really have the common sense to do that then... well, never mind.

The new program is supposed to "provide information regarding student academic achievement and learning progress" to be used--

--by public schools to improve instruction

--by students, parents and teachers "for the purpose of improving student instruction"

--by researchers to study and compare achievement level and learning progress at state and national level

--by state ed agency for school accountability and recognition purposes

--to evaluate achievement level and learning progress of individual students

--to identify students strengths and weaknesses to determine readiness for grade promotion and graduation

--to assess whether or not education goals and curriculum standards are being met on local and state level

--to evauate and develop education policies and programs

--and to "provide instructional staff with immediate, actionable, and useful information regarding student achievement of standards and benchmarks that may be used to improve the staff ’s delivery of student instruction"

So, factoring in that some of these are actually several different combined purposes, I get about seventeen various purposes for this test program. Chances that the testing program will be useful for all 17 goals? Zero.

But the real kicker is this-- there must be a beginning-of-year, middle-of-year, and end-of-year assessment. Yes, the single STAAR test will be replaced with three tests. 

The press coverage keeps saying that the three tests will be shorter than the STAAR, and the bill promises that "The agency shall adopt procedures to reduce total administration time." and that the tests "must be designed to minimize the impact on student instructional time." In fact the bill requires the adition of language arts as a tested area, including testing writing. The bill says that most students should beable to finish the beginning and middle tests in 75 minutes and the end-of-year test in 85 minutes. that's 235 minutes, which is just under four hours. The curent guidance on STAAR testing is that it should take three to four hours.

So by the time you factor in the starting and stopping administrative stuff, it sure looks like the new system will be even more time-wasting than the STAAR. And that's before we even get to the question of whether or not you can effectively test the many subject areas (for the 17 purposes) in 75 minutes. I don't think you can-- but if you can, then why have Texas students been sitting through a three-to-four hour test previously?

The bill also requires results in two business days after the testing window closes, which strikes me as impossible. The state is also supposed to issue diagnostic reports for each student, with "practical and useful instructional strategies" for parents and teachers to use. The bill seems to call for norm-referenced testing, and without getting too far into the weeds, a norm-referenced test is like grading on the curve-- you can't do it until all the scores are in and someone has decided where to draw the line between, say, the A and B grades.

The bill calls for increasing "rigor" in A-F system used to grade schools, as part of an aspirational goal of having Texas rank among the top five states within 15 years. Also, because they are tired of the lawsuits over STAAR and letter grades, lawmakers would like to outlaw "taxpayer-funded" lawsuits over school assessment, which would presumably mean no more lawsuits brought by school districts. 

The only positive point in this bill is that it prohibits "benchmark" aka "practice" tests in grades that already have to deal with the STAAR.  But overall, this is a big baloney sandwich that simply extends the test's toxic influence over the school year, while increasing the likelihood that alreadyuseless results will be even more useless. There's still a chance that it could die somewhere in the legislature, and that's by far the best Texas families could hope for.

Moms For Liberty Draws No Crowd For Nancy Mace

MAGA wingnut Nancy Mace was supposed to deliver a speech hosted by the Horry County, South Carolina chapter of Moms for Liberty. She's part of a five-person field of folks who are already jockeying for the GOP nod to replace the current term-limited governor. That election is coming up in--oh, lordy-- 2026. 

Mace's advance team might have guessed that this might end poorly. A quick check of the Horry County Moms for Liberty chapter shows a whopping 21 members (and that, as is standard for M4L, includes the parent group and national chapter coordinator Pat Blackburn). 

So it maybe shouldn't have come as a surprise that only eight people showed up.

It should have been a perfect fit-- Mace has built a whole brand on being wildly anti-LGBTQ, a self-declared "proud transphobe." She has used trans slurs in the House, gotten her X posts flagged for hateful condiuct, and has policed the bathrooms of Congress.

The expectation for last Thursday was for around 100 people. Eight is way less than 100.

According to one acount, Mace "pivoted" to just chatting face to face with the few faces that showed up. 

Moms Form Liberty tried to replace this face plant with a prettier face by describing event as a "meet and greet with supporters." She also talked to reporters, which leads one to wonder how many of the eight attendees were members of the press.

Mace herself did her best to pump up the county:

"Horry County makes presidents. Horry County elected Donald Trump, and they're a big part of the state," Mace said. "We're winning by double digits everywhere, but particularly with folks who support the president."

In fact, Mace has been doing well in polls. The five candidates (who are all pretty terrible) are climcing over each other to suck up to Dear Leader and earn his golden endorsement. Moms For Liberty, despite their dreams of electoral power, might now turn out to be uch of a factor in this race if they can't do a better job of raisin crowds.

In the meantime, did I mention that this is for the 2026 election? South Carolinians better batten down the hatches and prepare for lots more of this baloney. And Moms For Liberty might want to take stock of their actual boots on the ground.

 

ICYMI: Fallish Edition (8/24)

Autumn is my favorite season, hands down, so I get excited when the tail end of summer even starts to hint at what is coming. Can I wear shorts and a sweatshirt today? Yes, please.

Here's your list for the week.

The Double Burden of School Choice

This paper looks at the burdens that fall on parents when they are assigned the responsibility for finding an education for their own children. Honestly, the research here involves a sample of 39 whole parental units, which doesn't strike me as compelling. But I'm saving this link here because the paper includes a host of clickable links to all sorts of research in the field, and that alone makes this valuable.

“The Play’s the Thing….”

John Merrow was one of the nation's top education reporters. This post is a masterful connec tion between theater, student producers, and cell phone bans.

Uncritical Promotion of AI: Educators Should Know Better

John Robinson, the 21st Century principal, reminds educators to think before being pushed into AI adoption.

Rows and Aisles

Jose Luis Vilson explores the connections between our classrooms and the societies we wish to live in.

Selling Florida’s Public Schools, Piece by Piece

Florida continues to lead the nation in the dismantling of public education. Sue Kingery Woltanski observes that when public schools and the people who choose them won't get with the free market program, Florida's politicians find ways to make them.

KIPP NYC College Prep Cheats (again!) On US News & World Report Rankings

Gary Rubinstein explains how KIPP in NYC cheats its way into a high ranking on the silly US News list of schools. It's actually pretty clever, as cheating goes.

Prescriptive Practices

Audrey Watters, as always, covers a ton of stuff. But the headliner this time is Michael Pershan, a math teacher who demonstrates the value of seeing learning as a social activity, not a solitary one.

Something wicked this way comes

Ben Riley has some thoughts about the many institutions trying to sell AI in education, especially that op-ed writing former Google CEO.

Trump-appointed judge rebukes Oklahoma’s Ryan Walters

Ryan Walters, America's worst state education chief, tried to sue a religious freedom group into submission because of course he did. A Trump judge told him he was way full of it.

Important New Court Ruling Protects Equity and Inclusion in Public Schools and Students’ Civil Rights

This week a judge ruled against the Department of Education's threat to defund any school caught doing DEI things. This is kind of a big deal, and Jan Resseger has a guide to some of the coverage of this decision.

Trump’s Anti-DEI Guidance Crusade Just Got Struck Down

Julian Vasquez Heilig looks at the decision and its implications. 

DOJ Deems Definition of Hispanic-Serving Institutions Unconstitutional

Once again employing their legal theory that the only discrimination that happens in this country is discrimination against melanin-deprived penis owners, the regime has decided to cut all aid aimed at colleges with large Hispanic enrollment. Ryan Quin at Inside Higher Ed explains.

Persistent Straw Man Claims About Literary Skills: Grammar Division

Paul Thomas takes us down another rabbit hole involving a Science Of person taking a bold stand against things that nobody actually does.

Education Department quietly removes rules for teaching English learners

The Washington Post noticed that the Ed Department is just backing away from English Language Learner as a thing, in keeping with Dear Leader's "Speak English because Murica!" policy, and Laura Meckler and Justine McDaniel report on it. This is a move so dumb that even the increasingly dim-witted WaPo editrial board criticized it.

Florida will phase out certificates of completion for students with disabilities

Florida will stop giving certificates to students with special needs showing that they had diligently done their level best in school. Watch for erosion of special needs services to follow.

More than 1,000 SC voucher recipients were improperly enrolled in public schools

A whole lot of South Carolina's voucher students are apparently taking the money wbhile staying in public school.

Why America still needs public schools

Sidney Shapiro and Joseph Tomain at The Conversation explain, again, why public schools arew important and valuable and shouldn't just be trashed.

Tennessee to give more average per-pupil funding to voucher participants than public school students

Yup-- the state will give more money to educate a private school student than a public school one. Melissa Brown reports for Chalkbeat.

New Illinois Law Aims To Protect Access To Public Education For Immigrant Students

Chalkbeat coverage of legislators getting it right in Illinois.

AI Is A Mass Delusion Event

Charlie Warzel at the Atlantic, and some help in realizing you're not crazy for thinking that much of the AI stuff is crazy.

A teen band needed a pianist. They called Donald Fagen.

Cool story. Yes, it has a whiff of nepo baby about it, but it's also about how music gets passed down the generations.

James Taylor is delightful, and the kids are so full of joy, but I am also here for Howard Johnson, the great jazz tuba player, who just makes this sing.

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Send Last Year's Teacher A Note

This is my new beginning of the year tradition, and I recommend it to you.

Send a note to the teacher who taught your child last year.

As a teacher, you are really heartened by words of appreciation. Like many teachers, I had a file of notes from parents and students. Thank yous, appreciations, positive memories-- they meant a lot to me. That they were written down so that I could get them out now and then and just look through them was important-- you can't really get the same thing from a file of saved e-mails or texts. 

It's common to get these on a teacher appreciation occasion, or at the end of the school year, and they really provide a boost.

It's nice to end the year on a high note. But it would also be nice to get an extra boost as the new year begins.

In that launch of the new year, you feel anticipation and anxiety. What will this year's crop be like? What new hurdles will you face at school? If your previous year was not you very best work, you may wonder whether that was just a flukey result of specific issues of that year, or part of a trend that means you are starting to lose your edge. And if you have spent the summer hearing about how your kind are a bunch of selfish commie groomers who are ruining America--well, that's a lot of dust to shake off your shoes before you head back. 

What an excellent time to get a note telling you that you did good, that a student really benefited from the work you did last year, that you really have a handle on this whole teaching thing. What a good time to have something that can pump you up and remember that you can, indeed, take on the world. And what a nice reminder that a student who was, just a year ago, a stranger, is now someone who is glad they were in your classroom. And the extra beauty of this-- the teacher doesn't have to wonder if you are just trying to grease a path for your kid or not. 

So that's my suggestion. Send a note to the teacher(s) who made your child's last year a good one. It doesn't have to be long and involved, deep and profound. Tell them how your child is now better for having been in their classroom. Tell them that you appreciate their help in your child's journey to the person they are becoming.

Write it by hand. Stick it in an envelope and mail it to the school. If your district has already gotten under way, that's okay. The beauty of this is that as a teacher, there is never a bad time to get a personal note of appreciation from a former parent or student. Yes, there are other things to do support education, but this one is quick and simple and easy and will, I swear, make someone's world a slightly better place.

A Root Of The Problem

It's bigger than education, though education is where it reared its head most recently. 

It's there with every issue that has been framed as an attack on democracy, though that framing only scratches the surface. It's an issue baked into our country's foundation

Call it betterism. The belief that some people really are better than others. Some people really do deserve more power and privilege. Some people really do deserve a more important role in the culture and society.

It's not new. The Puritans of the Northern colonies were sure they were chosen by God. The plantation owners of the Southern colonies saw themselves as a new breed of aristocrat. And everyone thought they were better than enslaved Africans (that's why it was okay to enslave them). The framers set out a bunch of high-minded ideas, and we have spent almost 250 years trying to live up to them, sometimes with more success than others. 

We fought a whole war about whether some human beings are better than others (and then allowed people who believed some really are better to claw back ground afterwards). The New Deal posited that maybe some people aren't poor and struggling because they deserve to be, and they actually deserve a hand. The Civil Rights Movement posited that maybe state and local government should not be allowed to codify Betterism into law. Women should get to vote and own things and be paid for work. Most recently, LGBTQ folks exist and have the same rights as anyone else.

But we are living through a broad rejection of that foundational idea of equal worth.

Complaints about political correctness and CRT and DEI and "woke" are expressions of, "Look, I know I am better than Those People and I am really tired of folks who tell me I am not, or that I'm not allowed to talk and act as if I am." 

The return of "race science" to the conversation--an attempt to argue that science tells that some people are just born smarter and more capable-- better-- than others. 

Read More Everything Forever, Adam Becker's book about the tech overlords of Silicon Valley and it's clear that they (like Elon Musk) believe that they are so much better that they deserve to steer the course of human history, to rule over the Lessers.

The currrent assault on immigrants, launched under the pretext of rolling up dangerous criminals, is now clearly aimed at all non-European immigrants, regardless of whether they are gainfully employed, contributing members of their community, trying to "do it the right way," or even fully legal residents. The actual argum,ent at play is clearly, "Those People do not deserve the same citizenship privileges I have."

The whole social safety net is under attack because it gives privileges and rights and power to Those People who don't deserve it. As Dr. Oz put it, Medicaid work requirements are just a requirement to "prove that you matter." Because, I guess, the mere fact of your existence as a human being isn't proof enough. 

The Department of Education is an obvious target for Betterists because its primary purpose is to protect and enforce equity and non-discrimination.

LGBTQ persons (especially those Ts)? Pfrobably shouldn't exist, but if they do, they should have the decency to understand that they are Less than the rest of us, and hide their true nature from polite society. Certainly they should never have insisted on the right to marry.

People who have chosen not to worship the correct God in the correct way should understand that people who have chosen correctly are better than the poor choosers. And it's not just individuals. As Katherine Stewart put it, "It [Christian nationalism] asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage."

What reads as an attack on democracy in instance after instance is really an attack on the underlying premise, the notion that no person is better than any other. "End this foolish insistence," says MAGA, "that Those People are as good and deserving as their Betters. It's only common sense that some people are better, more deserving, more worthy than others, and it flies in the face of common sense to try to elevate Thoze People above their proper place." The Trump administration has been aggfressive in a host opf initiatives that can all be described as "Putting Those People in their proper place."

Privatizing education will have the effect of creating a multi-tiered system in which people of different status and power get different levels of educational quality for their children. For the Betterism crowd, this is a feature, and we should stop expecting them to care when we threaten them with what is, from their perspective, a good time. Education, their common sense tells them, should be about sorting young humans into their proper place and not about trying to elevate all of them. 

For Betterists, society should be a variety of tiers, with different levels of power and privilege for each tier. It makes sense that the sc hools in such a society would also be separated into various tiers, and privatization in which everyone had to pursue an education armed with the resources they have would help establish those tiers. 

The whole "this is an attack on democracy" argument holds little weight with the betterism crowd because they do not believe in the underlying ideas behind democracy. For them, people are not equal, and a system that tries to treat them as if they are or worse, tries to give the equal privilege, opportunity and attention, is simply immoral. You don't know how to explain to these folks that they should care about other people because they have already rejected your premise that all people are equally deserving of care. They don't hate the Lessers, but they do get angry when the Lessers won't simply stay in their proper place.

No, the conversation that's missing is the one in which we talk about how all people are people, equally worthy of love and support and attention and all the powers nd privileges that we would claim as an inherent right for ourselves. Until we've settled that conversation, conversations about threats to democracy will be stalled. Is this everything that's challenging us? No. But it's no small part.

PA: School Choice Lobby (And Jeff Yass) Spends Big

Stephen Caruso and the crew at Spotlight PA did some trememndous work on Pensylvania campaign contributions back in March and it deserved more attention than it got at the time. But it has a lot to tell us about who some Pennsylvania politicians are deeply indebted to when it comes to education.

The big industries playing in PA politics are energy, gaming, transportation and, surprise, K-12 education-- more specifically, the charter school industry (health care and real estate get a separate article). The researchers at Spotlight PA looked at contributions from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024. Over those two years, lawmakers raised over $42 million-- $17 million by Shapiro, and $25 by the other lawmakers.

Of that $42 million, over $10 million came from those four industries. Add to that another $7.6 million that those industries contributed to party caucus political committees.

Of that almost $17 mill, just under $9 million came from teachers’ unions, charter school operators, and private school backers.

"Yeah," I hear someone complain. "That teachers' union spends a lot of political money, and the privatizers have to try to keep up."

Sure. Spotlight PA found that of the almost $9 million, under $1.2 million came from the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) through their politicazl action wing (PACE-- which is funded by teacher contributions but cannot, by law, be funded with dues money).

The bulk of the rest of that money comes from two sources-- the Commonwealth Children's Choice Fund and Students First PAC.

Students First PAC emerged in 2010, and it is very simply, Pennsylvania gazillionaire Jeffrey Yass dressed up in a PAC suit. He is their sole contributor. It appears they haven't even bothered to maintain a website since shortly after their founding. Yass is the richest man in the state, a guy who won his initial stake playing poker, then moved into the investment biz.

Who does Students First PAC mostly give money to these days? Mainly the Commonwealth Children's Choice Fund. The website Transparency USA shows CCCF taking in $31,763,400. Of that, $31,505,000 came from Students First PAC. The #2 contributor is Clay Hamlin with a measley $100K. The Commonwealth Children's Choice Fund turned around and spent $33,579,570. Of that (take a deep breath), $27,234,761.63 was handed off to the Commonwealth Leaders Fund; that group and CCCF are the two Political Action Committees of Commonwealth Partners, a group that says it "engages entrepreneurs to lead free-market change in Pennsylvania," and they do appear to involve more than just Jeff Yass.

So Yass through Students Firsts PAC and Commonwealth Children's Fund is spending millions and millions of dollars to elect and support the GOP, especially the part of it that wants to privatize education. Some of the money coming into the races is astonishing. Spotlight PA found $1.4 million from privatizers to help PA State Senate President Pro Tem Kim Ward-- far more than came in from other sectors and far more than raised by Dem candidates. And that pile of money came in despite the fact that Ward ran unopposed in 2024! What the heck did she need over a million dollars for? 

The House GOP Campaign Committee pulled in $3.5 million from the K-12 privatizer crowd; the Senate GOP committee drew $1.9 million. Meanwhile the corresponding Dem committees together pulled in barely $600K.

So yeah-- a million dollars plus being put into campaigns by a union that is bundling the contributions of a tens of thousands of working teachers is totally as significant as a few million dollars being pumped in basically from one individual. Absolutely the same thing. But how wild to imagine that Pennsylvania politics for the past decade or two might have unfolded completely differently if one man hadn't hit a winning streak playing poker. How wild to imagine that if just one guy suddenly cvhanged his mind, state politics would suddenly lurch in a whole new direction. Interesting times we live in.

PA: Mastriano's Latest Voucher Bill

Pennsylvania States Senator Doug Mastriano, Trump-annointed failed gubernatorial candidate, has floated yet another in the state's long line of bad voucher legislation.

The one thing we can say about SB 969 is that it's at least short.  Beyond that, it's a waste of the small amount of space it takes up. But there's plenty of assorted baloney in its six pages.

The main thrust is the Educational Freedom for Families Account, an education savings account version of vouchery that has just a few features. 

Eligibility-- any family that meets the household income requirement of the state's existing voucher program, and who lives within the attendance area of a school in the bottom 15% of state metrics. The money can be spent on the usual list of items, from private school to homeschooling expenses. 

This bill comes with a justification for its own existence. Its purpose is to

(1) Provide access to education savings accounts for eligible students. 

(2) Increase flexibility for parents in determining appropriate educational options. 

(3) Improve educational outcomes and equity across school districts.

The first, sure. Second-- "increase" is doing a lot of work here, as school choice continues to rest not on what parents want, but what private schools are willing to give them. And at this point, we know that the third is not a real thing. Plenty of research shows that choice increases segregation and kneecaps educational outcomes. 

Mastriano proposes a different sort of funding set-up.

Each fiscal year, money shall be appropriated from the General Fund to the department in an amount not less than the average per-pupil State subsidy for basic education funding, as calculated by the most recent data published by the department.

"Average" is a scary word here, because state per-pupil spending varies wildly from district to district.  Funding the vouchers from the general fund is likely an attempt to placate Governor Shapiro, who is voucher-friendly, but has made clear he won't support a program that drains money from public schools. But it leaves the question of where this money is going to come from, exactly, or what is going to be cut from the general fund to pay for it. Don't get me wrong-- I am happy to finally after all these years open up a conversation about the true cost of school choice and how we can't have it without making education overall more expensive. 

But this will be expensive. Particularly since the bill calls for the state to set up an account for every eligible student. Not every family that has asked for it, but every eligible student. Maybe that's not wbat they actually meant.

There's language to say that the money shall follow the child, not the school, which the bill already makes clear, but I guess someone wanted to get that rhetoric in their. They did stop short of saying that the students should be given backpacks full of cash. 

There's a part about "misuse and audit" which says if families are caught misusing the money, they may be disqualified. How often? How many recipients? The Department of Education is supposed to perform annual audits, which seems like a great deal of work if they are supposed to audit every single family, but that's not clear.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education would also be responsible for maintaining a list of eligible vendors and providers. What safeties would be in place to make sure a vendor was qualified and legit? Nothing is mentioned in the bill.

One thing homeschoolers are not going to love--the bill calls for each voucher recipient to file "an annual education report, including attendance records and student progress evaluations, to the department." For homeschoolers who wanted to escape the state's big pokey eyeballs, this doesn't seem like a great fit.

The bill also calls to "streamline" the application process for charters and cyber charters; since one of the adverttised aims of the bill is to increase the number of such schools I assume that "streamline" means "lower the requirements."

Also, no "infringement" on the rights of lawful homeschoolers. Not sure why the bill's creator left out language requiring the state not to interfere with voucher schools, as is common in most new voucher bills. But it also promises that the state will "make available" various STEM stuff for home schoolers. What does "make available" mean? Drop it off at the house? Send clipped-out coupons for materials? Open a special state home school store?

Finally, this bill offers "Teacher performance incentives," sort of. "The Teacher Excellence Incentive Fund is established in the State Treasury" and funded with any federal funds for that purpose, private donations and grants, any "dormant" funds just kind of lying around unused in Harrisburg, and "other measures" determined by some imagined future law. That money (all $1.95 of it) will be used for "salary supplements, bonuses or student loan forgiveness." Awarding that pile of cash will be based on "objective improvements" in PSSA, SAT, or ACT scores, "year-over-year" student growth, schoolwide average grade point average increase,  or improved graduation/college admission rates. 

I have so many questions. Will the incentives be paid to individuals or to schools (the bill suggests the answer is "yes"). Do they mean improvements in one student's SAT score, or are they talking about when this year's group scores higher than last years? Will we be measuring a student's year-over-year growth in raw scores or inches or liters?

This bill reads like the barest outline of an idea for a bill, and if it had come from somebody else, I might not have paid attention. Since Mastriano has a memey promo for this bill, I'm not sure whether this is an actual attempt at creating policy or just a play for attention. Either way, it can go throw itself on the scrapheap of Pennsylvania voucher bill history.

In his press, Mastriano touts the bill as "a comprehensive, student-first solution that empowers parents, encourages school improvement and guarantees that every child has access to the best possible education." It does none of those things, and it especially, spectacularly not comprehensive. “For too long, Pennsylvania families have been denied the right to choose the best education for their children," he whinges. But in fact Pennsylvania families have had vouchers available since 2001. 

Mastriano announced this turkey back in February; it doesn't seem to have attracted a becy of co-sponsors, and was just sent to the Senate Education Committee. Let's hope it languishes and dies there.

A History Lesson: The Great Leap Forward

I read about this many years ago, but for some reason it has floated up in my consciousness lately. It's a chapter in Chinese history, and if you look hard enough, you might just see some important lessons there.

In the late 1950's, Communist Party Chairman and Beloved Leader Mao Zedong decided that he wanted to bring China into a modern era, to make the country great again, so he devised the Great Leap Forward.

One of the goals of the Great Leap was to convert from an agricultural economy into an industrial one. Part of the plan to accomplish this was to combine some farmers into communal farms and to send others to the city. A book I read years ago claimed that the central government actually gathered up metal tools from rural farmers and used the metal to try to create industrial machinery, leaving families with no implements for farming or, in some cases, cooking. Meanwhile, farmers were sent into factories or their own backyard furnaces to manufacture steel and iron, because, hey, anybody can do that. Except that the result was a lot of weak, unusable steel and iron.

At the time, if you were in government you could point out that this kind of fiorced transformation of an economy was unlikely to work, but Beloved Leader got rid of anyone who showed insufficient loyalty, and the only way to display loyalty was to agree that Mao's idea was awesome.

Agricultural experts had a bad feeling about Mao's ideas, so Mao simply got himself "experts" who had no real expertise at all, but were enthusiastic about the half-assed untested amatuer hour ideas they wanted to push. Foremost among these bozos was Russian Trofim Lysenko, Stalin's favorite hack geneticist, who had brillinat ideas like the notion that plants of the same species wouldn't compete and could therefor be planted really, really close together (this turns out to not be an actual thing). His ideas were dumb and bad, but they made Mao's plan look good, so he was in.

There was also a campaign to wipe out The Four Pests (mosquitoes, rats, flies, and sparrows), which wreaks all sorts of environmental havok.

All of this set the stage for a massive agricultural failure, which the Chinese government dealt with by lying. For several years, the actual crop output plummeted, but the official government reports said the crop output was increasing, because reality must never be allowed to interfere with an authoritarian's dreams. 

To say, "There isn't enough food and the people are starving," was seen as disloyal to Beloved Leader, so people didn't say it (and if a few did, they didn't say it more than once). All official sources reported the greatest crop surplus ever. 

End result? The Great Chinese Famine. Because nobody was keeping actual reality-based data, we don't know how many died, but estimates range from 15 to 55 million. 

So, in short, an authoritarian tries to force dramatic changes through sheer force of will, discounting expertise on both the large and small scale, then when things aren't working, simply demands that anyone who wants to keep his job must prove loyalty by supporting Beloved Leader's version of events, no matter how divorced from reality that might be. Bad ideas covered by authoritarian lies and bullshit, followed by disaster. 

For some reason, it's been on my mind lately.

ID: Sarah Inama Has New Classroom (And All Are Welcome There)

Sarah Inama has put her poster up in a new classroom.

Inama, you may recall, is the 6th grade world history teacher told by her district bosses at West Ada School District that her "Everyone Is Welcome Here" poster, complete with hands of many human shades, would not be tolerated in the district.  (I've been following this here, here, and here). West Ada is the largest district in Idaho, but their treatment of Inama has been spoectacularly awful, both from an Awful Display of Racism standpoint, a Grotesque Mistreatment of Staff standpoint, and a Boneheaded PR Management standpoint. 

Inama went to local news and the story blew up, delivering the shame that West Ada so richly deserved. We know a lot more thanks to some stellar reporting by Carly Flandro and the folks at Idaho Ed News, who FOIAed 1200 emails surrounding this and showcasing the board's stumbling response. You should read the resulting stories (here and here). 

The day after Inama was on the Today show, the district issued a memo entitled "Ensuring a Consistent and Supportive Learning Environment." They decided to go with sports analogies. The Chief Academic Officer is a like a referee who enforces rules "to ensure a fair and level playing field." And there's this howler--

If one player decided to wear a different uniform, use a different-sized ball, or ignore the rules, the game would lose its structure, creating confusion and imbalance.

Then a report from BoiseDev that the Board of Trustees is considering making every teacher put up an "Everyone is welcome" poster-- just without those multi-colored hands. Responding to BoiseDev, a district spokesperson explained:

Regarding the Everyone is Welcome Here posters, the district determined that while the phrase itself is broadly positive, certain design elements have been associated over time with political entities and initiatives that are now subject to federal restriction.

Inama told Idaho EdNews, “That’s appeasing not a political view, but a bigoted view that shouldn’t even be considered by a public school district.”

Inama was told the poster was divisive, that it was "not neutral," that the problem was not the message, but the hands of v arious skin tones. Teachers shouldn't have political stuff in the classroom. Inama nails the issue here

“I really still don’t understand how it’s a political statement,” she said. “I don’t think the classroom is a place for anyone to push a personal agenda or political agenda of any kind, but we are responsible for first making sure that our students are able to learn in our classroom.”

Some parents and students showed up at school to make chalk drawings in support. And yet many folks within and outside the district saw this as a divisive issue. How could anyone do that? Meet district parent Brittany Bieghler, who was dropping her kids off the day that parents were chalking the "Everyone is welcome here" message on the sidewalks.

“The ‘Everyone is Welcome’ slogan is one filled with marxism and DEI, there is no need for those statements because anyone with a brain knows that everyone is welcome to attend school, so there is no need to have it posted, written or worn on school grounds,” she wrote. “My family and I relocated here from a state that did not align with our beliefs and we expected it to be different here, but it seems as time goes by, its becoming more like our former state, which is extremely disheartening.”

"Anyone with a brain" might begin to suspect that everyone is not welcome here under these circumstances. And the school board itself couldn't decide what to respond, drafting an assortment of emails that tried to show conciliation to those that were defiant and defensive, including one complaining in MAGA-esque tones that Inama was naughty for going to "new media."

Imana resigned from her position, and by June the word was out that she was a new hire at Boise Schools. She told Idaho Ed News, 

I’m so grateful to be able to work within a district that knows the beauty of inclusion and diversity and doesn’t for a second consider it an opinion but embraces it. As an educator, it’s an amazing feeling to know your (district’s) officials, board, and administrators fully uphold the fundamentals of public education and (have) the dignity to proudly support them. I really feel at home knowing we are truly all on the same team … and that’s a team that is rooting on all of our students.

Damned straight. And just last week, as reported by KTVB news, Inama posted video of herself putting up an "Everyone is welcome here" poster in her new classroom.

So the story ends well for Inama, and that's a great thing. This is the sort of boneheaded administrative foolishness that can drive teachers out of the profession. The unfortunate part of the story is that up the road in West Ada schools, the administration, board and a non-zero number of parents think that challenging racism is bad and saying that students of all races are welcome in school is just one person's opinion that shouldn't be expressed openly in a school. Shame on West Ada.

ICYMI: Getting Back To It Edition (8/17)

Vacation time is over and we are back at the Institute's home base. The CMO goes back to work later this week, and the board of directors gets to it next week. This will be my eighth year of not going back to the classroom, and it almost doesn't feel unspeakably weird. God bless everyone who is going back to do the work. 

Here's the reading for the week, selected from the small number of articles not concerned with Putin, Epstein, or fascism. Mostly.

Republicans demand gay school board member resign because he’s working for a Pride organization

Of course it's Florida, where the same board that Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler serves has found one more way to harass their single gay member.

Arziona Supreme Court Strikes down School Funding Method

Arizona joins the club of states compelled by the courts to fix their crappy funding system. 

Schools do not have to follow Trump administration’s DEI order, federal judge rules

You may recall that back in February the regime issued an edict saying that schools that did naughty DEI stuff would be punished. A federal judge has said that directive is unlawful and nobody has to follow it. Chalkbeat has the story.

Prescriptive Practices

Audrey Watters reports on practices of math teacher Michael Pershan, who reminds us that learning is a social activity. Then she covers all the other stuff. Have you subscribed yet?

Ending High Truancy Rates: How to Get Students to School

Nancy Bailey's title is a bit misleading, because these ideas wouldn't just get more kids to school, but would make schools all around better.

Widespread Tax Cuts Eviscerate the Social Contract

Jan Resseger looks at how the many many cuts affecte school bot directly and indirectly.

Reader mailbag

Ben Riley answers some reader qustions (and sneaks in his response to ChatGPT-5), including more news from schools making terrible mistakes.

Do You Need a Private College Counselor? I Asked the Pros

Yes, there are such things, and they aren't cheap. Akil Bello has the necessary contacts to check around and find out if you really need a private college concierge for your kid.

The Reading Proficiency Bait and Switch

Paul Thomas has a grear new name for his blog-- The Reliable Narrator-- and another good explanation of how a reading crisis has been manifactured in this country.

Kent County judge denies request to toss school librarian’s lawsuit against Moms for Liberty member

In Michigan, a school librarian was fed up with harassment and slander from the local Moms for Liberty lady, so she sued, and this week, a judgebthrew out the M4L attempt to get the case dismissed.

Read Whatever the Hell You Want

Blogger Charoltte Clymer has a short and simple point to make. You are never going to read all the great books.

This Evangelical Pastor Wants to Replace Women’s Right to Vote

David French wrote a New York Times profile of Doug Wilson, another far right pastor making Christianity look bad. As you read the profile, keep in mind one detail that French didn't include-- Wilson is one of the founding fathers of the Christian Classical Schools movement.

This week I was happy to report at Forbes.com that a judge threw out most of a Floirida book ban law. Good news there. 

There are many reasons to love the Blues Brothers movie, and not the least is that it's a master class in using a platform to lift up a whole bunch of other folks, many of whom, in 1980, had drifted away from the public eye. The Seventies had not been great for Aretha Franklin, but a new label and this kick-ass performance in the movie opened up a whbole new era of success for her. The film wasn't about co-opting current top-40 artists. And just look at how Belushi and Ackroyd stay out of the way and let the queen do her thing.

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