Sunday, September 14, 2025

ICYMI: Fresh Apple Edition (9/14)

We have a curb market in town. Once a week in the fall, local farmers and some other folks bring their wares to town and you can buy some fresh produce. Yesterday I took the board of directors up town and we got a big bag of apples (among other things) which they then snack on for the rest of the--well, a bag usually lasts two days.

The boys don't have screens of their own, and they are not allowed to piggy back on their grownups' screens. The use chromebooks at school, which I'm not delighted about, but at least it's a closed system where they can't just roam. Their mother and I can live with that.

Among the lessons from the murders this week is a simple one-- pay attention to what your sons are doing on line. Both killers this week were apparently radicalized by hard-right nihilistic groyper crap on line. I taught teenagers for decades, and I'm plenty familiar with the teenaged male impulse to be transgressively shocking, but folks on the interwebs have taken this impulse and fed it into something more monstrous. If you're a parent, pay attention.

Okay, here's the reading list for the week. 


Dana Goldstein at the New York Times looks at a newly released study that shows that vouchers are raising tuition, spurring growth in religious schools, and mostly benefitting families that were already private schooling. If I did it right, this should be a gift link.

These Charter Superintendents Are Some of the Highest Paid in Texas. Their Districts Are Among the Lowest Performing.

ProPublica and the Texas Tribune take a look at Texas charters, where the students aren't doing so well, but the administrators are making money hand over fist.

Ohio to allow Dolly Parton Imagination Library signups from hospital at birth

Lord knows that Ohio gets so much wrong, but I have to give them credit for getting this one thing right.

The school shooting industry is worth billions — and it keeps growing

Meg Anderson at NPR looks at how much the industry is making on the business of keeping children and parents scared out of their wits.

Ohio Charter Schools Prove Private Sector Less Efficient than Public Sector

Stephen Dyer examines that age-old claim that private sector (as in charter schools) is just so much more efficient than the public sector.

Portland Catholic school loses students over LGBTQ+ enrollment controversy

A Portland, OR, Catholic school threw a student out when they learned the parents were a same-gender couple. Now they are losing a bunch of other students as well. 

Everyone’s a Hypocrite

Rick Hess points out that many voices in the education debates abandon principles for any advantage for their team. He's got a point.

Records show Ryan Walters has a pattern of poor attendance at state boards

I don't really want to write more about Oklahoma's dudebro-in-chief of education, but I don't want this piece from Nuria Martinez-Keel at Oklahoma Voice go by, either, because as awful as Walters is when it comes to ideological baloney, it's worth noting that he's also awful at the basics of doing his job.


Thomas Ultican takes a look at The AI Con, a book you really ought to read.

How Emily Hanford’s "Sold a Story" Became a Conduit for the Public Dissemination of the Right-Wing "Project 2025" Agenda to Affect State Laws and Reshape Reading Instruction in Public Schools

Publisher Denny Taylor is writing an education newsletter these days; this is part 3 of a four-part series that looks at what some rightward folks are doing to influence reading instruction.

Jan Resseger breaks down some of the financial challenges and potential problems in the state and federal funding world of education.

Gutted

Meg White looks at some of the education funding that has been cut in the House version of a federal budget.

The sound of things falling apart

Paul Bowers on listening to William Basinski's The Disintegration Loop on September 11. I'd never heard about the work before, so I learned something from this thoughtful meditation. 

Killer Democracy: How a Corrupt Supreme Court Turned Debate Into Death

Thom Hartmann on gun laws, court rulings, and how they helped bring us here.

An old favorite here, and the theme for yearbook my senior year of high school. 


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