ICYMI: Mom's Birthday Edition (11/9)

My mother will be checking off another year around the sun this week. We held a modest celebration yesterday because she doesn't like a fuss. Fair enough. May you have just the amount of fuss you want from the people you love.

Here's your reading list from the week. Remember that sharing is caring.

Education Helped Power the Blue Wave

You won't find a better education-related summary of the election results than this post from Jennifer Berkshire. 

The Ketchup

Audrey Watters comes bearing an excellent assortment of links this week. More to read!

Rigid Federal Rules May Block Efforts by Dem. States to Redirect New Federal Vouchers for Pro-Public School Uses

The feds still haven't written the rules to go with the federal voucher program, but Jan Resseger explains why the idea that this money could benefit public education is looking pretty shaky.

“Every Child Known: The Slogan That Says Everything and Means Nothing”

Exceptional TC Weber post this weeks connects the dots between meaningless school administration sloganeering and the central place of relationships in education.

Consulting Firm with Deep GOP Ties Helps Launch Effort to Fully Privatize Tennessee Schools

Andy Spears takes a look at a new player in Tennessee that has plans to gut public education--and they appear to have some deep GOP ties.

Florida’s State Board Poised to Ratify Heritage’s “Phoenix Declaration”

Florida is ready to sign on with the Heritage Foundation's Phoenix Declaration, and Sue Kingery Woltanski explains why that is bad news. More culture panic school takeover ahead.

Education Board Reverses Book Ban By Harford County Schools |

In Maryland, the state board of education told a local school board to put a book back on the shelves.

Dear Centennial School Board: We Spoke. Many of You Did Not Listen. And Now We Voted You Out

There is a sequel to the tale of Central Bucks School District in PA. When their far right board lost its majority, their far right superintendent headed for the exit (with a basket of money tucked under his arm). He found a home with another district's far right board, over the vocal objections of taxpayers in the district. Now the board that hired him has been swept out of office. Full story at the Bucks County Beacon with Nancy Pontius reporting.

Mark Zuckerberg Opened an Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. His Neighbors Revolted

Zuck's neighbors really don't like him, so when he started running a school out of his home, they were just done and they sicced the law on him. Caroline Haskins in Wired.

The Limits of AI Research for Real Writers

John Warner explaining again that actual writing is not augmented by AI.

Sexbots, students, and schools

Ben Riley suggests that AI is messing with our understanding of what public education is for. He looks at Henry Farrell and the lesson learned from online porn.

Arne Duncan's back in the mix, pushing school vouchers and praising Republicans for their school reform efforts.

I offered my own take on Duncan's op-ed earlier this week. Here's Mike Klonsky's look, including a disturbing possibility-- could Arne be testing waters for a Presidential run by one of the Democrats' griftiest con artists?

In the Trump Presidency, the Rules Are Vague. That Might Be the Point.

Matthew Purdy wrote this essay for the New York Times, and while it's not directly education-related, folks in the ed world will recognize the issue. Make the rules vague and you can just punish whoever you want to punish.

The Lack of Evidence for Ubiquitous Classroom Technology

Larry Cuban and how the desire for evidence based research somehow stops when we talk about ed tech.

How SNAP Funds the Mass Reads Coalition. Or, A Win-Win for the Walton Family

Maurice Cunningham follows the money and figures out that SNAP is tied to advocates for "science of reading."

Jury awards $10 million to teacher who was shot by 6-year-old student

Another sequel to a story covered here. That teacher shot by a sixth grader won a $10 million settlement for the principal's failure to take teacher warnings seriously.

Teachers are Patriots! Who Knew?

Nancy Flanagan points out the obvious-- teachers are not a bunch of crazed America-hating indoctrinators. And there's research to back it up!

This week at Forbes.com, I looked at how the blue wave finished the transformation of Central Bucks School District. Just four years ago, they were the MAGAist GOP board around, a scary harbinger of things to come. Now all nine seats are filled by Democrats. 

Les Paul was a genius and a monster player. This clip is supposed to be from 1951, which would be a year before the first Les Paul guitar was offered commercially. It's also three years after he was in a car accident that shattered his elbow. Rather than accept amputation, Paul had the arm set with a permanent 90 degree angle so he could hold the guitar. 1951 was also the year he and Mary Ford released this hit, one of the first demonstrations of the possibilities of multitrack recording. 

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