UT: Taking Education Back To 1952

Utah is looking at HB 312 which seeks to "modify" school curriculum and standards. Having already interjected a version of the Ten Commandments into classrooms, legislators are seeing if they can't push some more religion in there, along with a hefty dose of right-wing politics and actual Mormonism. Coverage of bill has focused on the Christian nationalism aspect, but there are few other things going on in the bill that promise to lead Utah boldly into the past.

The bill ups the requirements for US history instruction, and it has some definite ideas about what that instruction should look like. It promises the development of some "open educational resources" that are both open and at the same time, the state is supposed to own all IP rights for the resources, including copyright.

The bill calls for materials that sell the idea "America good, communism bad." America's founding principles (individual liberty, limited government, natural rights) are set right beside supporting and preserving the family, the awesomeness of the Constitution, economic prosperity through free market capitalism, and the contributions that America has made to "human progress and flourishing." This is to be deliberately contrasted with the evils of communism and other autocratic government (while noting we have a republic that rejected the pure democracy of Greece). 

The course should note that communists tried to spread their ideology in the 20th century and tried to infiltrate institutions. It should list a whole bunch of communist atrocities including the Cultural Revolution in China, Khmer Rouge genocide, Cuba's commie naughtiness, and the systematic persecution of religious groups. That last one is a particularly bold choice for Utah, the state where the US Army was sent ion 1857 to take the Mormons down a peg or two.

Meanwhile, the course should teach the benefits of "constitutional republicanism." This is a quick capsule of the right-wing fable version of US history. Unlike many attempts to push this story into schools, this bill does not include any language requiring that teachers admit that yeah, there were some problems with slavery and racism in this country, but that's all in the past. 

The Christian nationalism part comes with the list of selected documents intended for inclusion:

the Bible, including the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, as literary and historical texts that have influenced American constitutional history, civic thought, and cultural development; 

This has been the standard smokescreen ever since the 1963 SCOTUS ruling that suggested that suggested teaching about the Bible was okay as long as it was purely objective consideration of historical and literary merit. It's an easy game to play. When my high school experimented with 9 weeks mini-courses, one was "The Bible as History and Literature." It was taught by a devout Baptist (famously, at the end of every class, his announcement for what was coming next started with "If we're here tomorrow..." by which he meant "If the Rapture doesn't come tonight...") and he taught the class like a literature class, but the only acceptable way to understand and interpret the text was the one reflected in his own religious beliefs. So, yeah, I've seen this game. Just think of any English teacher you had who taught that there was only one correct way to read the text, and imagine if that text were a sacred scripture.

Teaching the Bible as an important historical influence on the American Revolution is almost always proposed by people who believe that the historical influence was the attempt to found a Christian nation and not, say, the efforts of people who had deep personal knowledge of how badly things go when government and religion are closely linked and who were therefor determined to found a nation that was definitely NOT based on some religion. 

So, yes-- this bill is another attempt to forcibly sneak a particular brand of Christianity into classrooms.

Since we're talking Utah, there is one other interesting item in the bill--

when teaching Utah history, an LEA may include study of religious beliefs and texts that influenced the state's early founders and the state's history.

In Utah, that means The Book of Mormon (and I don't mean the Broadway musical). In fact, Utah provides a pretty rich contrast between a country not founded on a religion and a state absolutely founded as a colony for a definitely-not-mainstream religion where the church was the government.

Bill House sponsor Tiara Auxier is a parents' rights, make Utah great again conservative, former school board member and legislative newbie. It's not clear what her church affiliation is. Lead Senate sponsor is Todd Weiler. 

There's a story that some folks on the right like to tell. Once upon a time, a bunch of white Christian men got together and, with their Bibles open beside them, they copied out a Constitution that enshrined freedom, the nuclear family, and the free market, just the way God wanted them. Occasionally some bad individuals did bad things like enslaving Black folks, but we settled at that around 1964. In the 20th century, communists, for no reason other than they're just selfish and evil, snuck a bunch of their people into elite institutions (like schools and colleges) and started trying to indoctrinate children to join them in ruining the US just like they ruined the rest of the world. But we can take those institutions back and make them tell young people the one true story of our history (and everything else). 

Folks who believe this story also believe that if we could indoctrinate teach children this story-- and only this story-- then we'd get things back on track. 

I am a little curious how things would work if Utah passes this bill and conservative christianists discover that the Book of Mormon gets to enter the classroom on equal footing with the Bible. When you keep sliding that Overton Window around, you can never know what might slip through. It might even become a portal to an imaginary past.

Follow Casey Fiesler For AI Info

 I'm not a huge video guy, particularly when it comes to the short for stuff. But I stumbled across the work of Casey Fiesler, and I want to recommend it to you as a good explainer for large language model AI.

Casey Fiesler is the William R. Payden Endowed Professor in the Department of Information Science (and Computer Science, by courtesy) at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has  PhD in Human-centered Computing from Georgis Tech and a JD from Vanderbilt Law School. She can be found on pretty much every social media platform (often as Professor Casey). She focuses on ethics and law when it comes to AI, and she rocks a mean pair of Clippy earrings.

What I've embedded below is (hopefully) her series of short videos about how AI works (and why we should care). It's comprehensible for a layperson, short, clear, and informative. Each one is about 2-3 minutes long. It's also a reminder that, as she points out, AI is magic and can therefor be explained. 

Fiesler handles the material without trying to push one direction or another, but just laying out what is actually going on under the hood

Fiesler also has a series on AI and ethics, and, believe it or not, also has some videos of her doing stand up comedy about the issues. 

Fiesler has a light touch and a grounded view of what AI can, can't, and shouldn't do. If she's not already there, she's a useful addition to your stable of AI experts with a realistically dubious eye on LLMs (you should already be following Benjamin Riley and Audrey Watters). I mean, Emily Bender, Hank Green, Heather Cox Richardson, and Ben Williamson follow her on Bluesky. Look her up, and if you would rather watch videos than read stuff (or know someone like that), check her out.

ICYMI: Swearing Not Procrastinate More Edition (3/29)

I swear I am going to get my taxes done today, ignoring the semi-decent weather outside and every other thing that attracts my attention. In the meantime, I'm going to throw this week's reading list at you. Remember, sharing is always helpful.

Education is the Enemy

Jess Piper looks at more anti-education policy in Missouri, where a policy penalizing colleges for giving students low-earning degrees would end up penalizing any school that trains teachers.

Penn has an AI problem

The student newspaper at University of Pennsylvania says the school's leaders are making an AI-addled mess.

Telling Your Story and Our Story

Greg Wyman looks at the importance of telling your story-- particularly when you are a public school facing charter and private school competition.

Belleville parents outraged after students invited to do community service at ice detention facility

A New Jersey school's 11th graders get a surprise invitation from an unwelcome facility.

What ICE Detention Does to a Child

Andrea Gonzalez-Ramirez looks at the impact of the regime's detention camps on the children. This is a rough story to read, but a necessary one.

Rediscovering Knowledge as the Key to Reading

This piece if by Daniel Willingham and E.D. Hirsch at Education Next, so you will probably disagree with some of what's here, but there are also a few points worth thinking about. Content knowledge does indeed provide a foundation for reading comprehension.

How Can You Tell If a Curriculum Truly Builds Knowledge?

I'm not always a Wexler fan, but this post offers some useful ideas about telling whether a not a curriculum is really building knowledge or is just farting around with a topic.

Proposal to relax voucher program’s testing mandate advances in Tennessee House

Voucher programs repeatedly run into hard truth that voucher students do poorly on the BS Test. That could be a call for them to do a better job teaching students, but the Tennessee GOP would prefer to go in a different direction. Melissa Brown at Chalkbeat.

How Will Trump’s Supporters React To Seeing School Vouchers Program Increase Chinese Influence?

Jeff Bryant takes a closer look at some of the groups looking to cash in on the federal voucher program, and why the right wingers who support the vouchers might have some problems with the profiteers lining up to benefit from it. Forward this to your favorite GOP state lawmaker who thinks free federal voucher money would be great.

What It Takes to Flip a Seat

Jennifer Berkshire reports on yet another Democrat who won in part by standing up for public education.

A Federal Court Blocks RFK Jr.'s Anti-Vaccine Agenda – But the Threat to Children Is Not Over

Bruce Lesley looks at a successful court challenge to one of the bananapants policies that RFK Jr. imposed on us. That may keep your students slightly safer, but the fight is not over yet.

Claremont in the Crosshairs

New Hampshire has a court decision on the books that, as in other states, says it has to fix its shabby damned school funding system. Now some folks are trying to make that decision go away. Andru Volinsky, lawyer from the original decision, explains what's going on now.

Cutting State Funding while Intensifying Test-and-Punish Won’t Improve Public Schools

Hard to believe we are still trying to make this point after decades, but Jan Resseger is here to do the work.

Stephen Miller Pushes States to Pass Laws Denying Public Education for Undocumented Students

Jan Resseger is doing double duty this week by looking at reactions to Stephen Miller's call for Texas to bar undocumented immigrants from education.

Grade Retention is Bad Education Policy

Thomas Ultican takes a look at just some of the evidence that third grade retention policies do more harm than good (and the good is not for students, but for the district).

A Bill to Prohibit Changes to SC Monuments

I can't imagine what it's like to try teaching history in one of these confederate states that require folks to not just avoid badmouthing confederate figures, but also to actually revere these traitors. But here comes South Carolina with a "hands off our rebel statuary" bill. Steve Nuzum has the story.

You Do Not, In Fact, Have to Hand It to Them

Audrey Watters is here to remind you that, among other things, tech billionaires make predictions that are marketing baloney and also very wrong.

OpenAI's slop machine Sora is dead. We're all better off without it

True that. Sora was a blight, and now it's gone. Cross your fingers that nothing worse springs up to replace it.

The Hypocrisy at the Heart of the AI Industry

Alex Reisner at The Atlantic (this should be a gift article). The tag line says it-- "Tech companies believe in intellectual property, but not yours."

AI is not superhuman

Benjamin Riley continues to be one of my favorite AI growlers. Here he looks for a good metaphor for AI.

This week at Forbes.com I looked at a study that suggests that computer tutors work better when they aren't lying about how human they are. 

Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens worked for a couple of decades starting in the thirties; they played their last gig in 1962. They were out of Lancaster, PA and made a yearly appearance at Hersheypark. That hardworking bass player was out of Hershey. The woman next to the maraca player was Reg's wife. 

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Plyler for Dummies

You're going to see the Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe coming up a bunch these days, and if you are not up on your SCOTUS cases, let me provide you with the basic info about what the case was, why its decision matters, and why some folks are looking to get it overturned. This is about immigrants and education and, as is often the case these, a whole lot more.

Why did the case happen in the first place?

Texas. In 1975, they passed a law prohibiting "the use of state funds for the education of children who had not been legally admitted to the U.S." In 1977, Tyler Independent School District adopted a policy requiring students who were not "legally admitted" to pay tuition ("legally admitted" included having documents saying they were legally present or in the process of getting such documents).

A group of students who couldn't produce such documents sued the district. The district court ruled the policy (and therefor the state law on which it rested) was unconstitutional. The federal appeals court agreed, and the district pursued appeals all the way to the Supremes, who handed down a decision in June of 1982.

What did SCOTUS say?

SCOTUS was 5-4 against the policy.

The majority opinion, written by Justice William J. Brenan. found that the law was aimed squarely at children and discriminated against them for a characteristic that they could not control. The ruling also asserted that there is a state and national interest in educating these children, regardless of immigration status, because denying them an education would lead to "the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime."

The majority argument also rested heavily on the Fourteenth Amendment, which should ring a bell because that is also the amendment that establishes birthright citizenship, which Donald Trump would very much like to get rid of. The arguments in Plyler rested on the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Lewis Powell (a Nixon appointee) argued in his concurring opinion that the children were being kept from schools because their parents broke the law. "A legislative classification that threatens the creation of an underclass of future citizens and residents cannot be reconciled with one of the fundamental purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Even the dissent, written by Chief Justice Warren Berger, actually agreed with the majority that it would be a bad idea to "tolerate creation of a segment of society made up of illiterate persons." But they asserted that this was an issue to be settled by lawmakers and not the court.

One notable argument raised by Texas officials was that the phrase "within the jurisdiction" in the Equal Protection Clause did not cover illegal aliens. Both the majority opinion and the dissent disagreed, arguing that illegal aliens are, in fact, persons, and they are here. 

Why do we care?

Many pieces of this case have re-emerged in recent years, in part because conservatives have a bone to pick with the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause was, for instance, instrumental in Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision that established same-gender marriage as Constitutional.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been itching to revive that 1975 anti-child law since SCOTUS struck down Roe, arguing that the Dobbs decision draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito (the one that was leaked) was based on the idea that abortion rights are not specifically protected by the Constitution and neither does it mention education rights for undocumented immigrants.

And if SCOTUS can be convinced to take another look at that "within the jurisdiction" language, so that the court no longer recognizes being a person and being here as enough, we could be looking the wholesale creation of all sorts of second-class tiers in America, people who are not protected by the Equal Protection Clause. 

The Trump administration has been pushing back against Plyler for a while, But in just the last week, hateful homunculus Steven Miller has pushed Texas to kick those undocumented immigrant kids out of school. Earlier this month the House held a whole hearing on "the adverse effects of Plyler v. Doe." The underlying argument is part bullshit, part chilling prediction of where these guys are headed, the argument being basically "Why spend money on anyone who is not One Of Us," an argument that is sociopathic baloney, but also alarming in how easily it can extended to anybody We Don't Like. Witness also this tweet from the official White House twitter account:

Get that? Not the worst of the worst. Not illegal or undocumented immigration. The promise made and kept is to chase all immigrants away. And if scaring them away from schools with ICE, or chasing them out of schools entirely-- well, if that gets a few more of those immigrants out of the country, then the administration thinks that's just fine.

The GOP in Tennessee has obligingly advanced a bill that would allow schools to deny, or charge tuition for, education to any children without legal immigration status. They did amend the bill so that children thrown out of school for immigrant status will not be in trouble under the state truancy laws. What big hearts! The bill exists to allow legal challenges to carry it all the way to the Supremes so they can, if so inclined, undo Plyler. 

Just imagine if SCOTUS also undoes the Fourteenth Amendment's birthright citizen language. America gets a large, uneducated generation of young humans who can either be deported or put to work as good old fashioned hard laborers (thank all the states that have rolled back child labor laws).

There's an extra layer of irony here. As we learn from Adam Laats in his book Mr. Lancaster's System, one of the forces behind the invention of the U.S. public school system was a concern about the number of illiterate and unschooled youths who were out on the street causing trouble and worrying their elders. 

So pay attention to what happens to Plyler next under the regime. It could spell trouble not just for undocumented immigrants, but for all of us. If leaders agree that only Certain People are entitled to an education, we'd better pay attention to who qualifies as Certain People, and who does not. 

PA: Book Banners Are Never Satisfied

The Independence Law Center, a far right christianist law firm, has helped craft and push anti-LGBTQ, anti-diversity, anti-reading policies in Pennsylvania districts for a few years. They've had enough success that one might think that in some districts they could just sit back and say, "Well, our work here is done." 

But for people who want to squelch Naughty Ideas, the work is never done. The new wave of ILC policies is a reminder that for these folks, no amount of book banning is ever enough.

The Independence Law Center

The ILC is the law arm of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. PFI was founded in 1989 as a “key strategic voice for the family, and for the Judeo-Christian principles needed for a free and prosperous society.” Their stated mission is to “strengthen families by restoring to public life the traditional, foundational principles and values essential for the well-being of society.” As with many christianist political groups, they’ve learned to couch their goals in more secular language, but their true nature often peeks through.

Our goal is for Pennsylvania to be a place where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished.

Of course, they only have one particular God in mind.

The founder, president, and CEO of PFI is Michael Geer. Geer started out as a journalist, including almost a decade as senior news producer at WPXI in Pittsburgh. Geer is a regular voice in conservative meetings, church gatherings, and media coverage. He’s opposed to legalization of marijuana, women’s health care options, non-traditional marriage, and freedom to read for students.

In 2006, PFI set up the Independence law Center to do pro bono work “that litigates and advocates on behalf of the sanctity of life, marriage and family and religious liberty.” Wenger has been the chief counsel since the center’s inception. He’s a ninth-generation Lancaster County Mennonite who decided early on that he wanted to be a religious liberty lawyer.

Samek, who joined in 2015, is senior counsel. Samek has been a school board member (Franklin Regional), spent eight years as an attorney with Eckert Seamans in Pittsburgh, and before that was a staff sergeant in the USAF reserve. His law degree is from Pitt; his undergraduate work was done at Liberty University.

The center has handled some high profile cases in the past; Wenger has been to the Supreme Court twice. A decade ago he took Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp v. Burwell to SCOTUS, where it was paired with the more famous Hobby Lobby case that decided that employers’ free exercise of religion allowed them to refuse to provide insurance to cover types of health care with which they disagreed (in this case, birth control).

ILC has been consistent in representing pro-Christian, anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion points of view. So it should be no surprise that in recent years they have been plenty busy with work in school districts.

ILC and school districts

ILC has worked in a number of school districts around the Commonwealth.

In 2012, Wenger worked with ADF to provide cover for a school board in Mercer County that wanted to “solemnize” its meetings with a prayer. That year they were also involved in a dispute between the Harrisburg school district and Child Evangelism Fellowship over release time allowing the group to “feed lunch to participating elementary students (off site) and also feed them truth from God’s word.”

In 2017, ILC teamed up again with ASDF for a lawsuit against the Boyerstown Area School District, alleging that the district was promoting sexual harassment of students by allowing trans students to use the locker rooms for their identified gender. Though they aimed for the Supreme Court, SCOTUS chose not to hear the appeal of the Third Circuit ruling in favor of the district. ILC also involved itself in a similar case involving a trans student in Virginia.

In 2019, ILC took the Mechanicsburg district to court because it was prohibiting students in Christians In Action from handing out Bibles during lunch (the district’s policy banned handing out all non-school literature).

In 2020, they warned 50 Pennsylvania districts that they were illegally targeting students’ religious speech.

Many of these cases are highlighted on ILC’s page of “case news.” They are less forthcoming about their other growth business—quietly writing discriminatory policy for right-wing school board members.

The Central Bucks school board famously became the poster for right-wing culture panic takeover, launching a batch of anti-LGBTQ, anti-reading policies, while steadfastly refusing to tell non-right-wing members of the board exactly who was “helping” write those policies.

But some metadata showed that at least some of those policies had passed across Jeremy Samek’s desk, and when former board Vice President Leigh Vlasblom moved on to a job with the right-wing Leadership Institute, Vlasblom bragged that during her board tenure she had “worked extensively with PA Family Institute, Independence Law Firm, Keeping Kids in School PAC, Hope 4 PA, and Bucks Families for Leadership.”

When pressed, Central Bucks board President Dana Hunter finally admitted working with ILC’s Samek, arguing that since he was working pro bono, she had no obligation to inform other board members – or district parents and taxpayers. Offering pro bono "help" writing repressive policies has been an ILC standard plan.

Other districts have worked closely with ILC to draft policies to ban books and trans athletes. When Hempfield’s school board worked on book restrictions and trans athlete restrictions in 2022 and 2023, their board not only used ILC advice for crafting the policies, but met with Wenger in executive session.

Central York School District drew considerable attention for what was, in 2021, the highest number of books banned in the country. FOIA requests pulled emails that showed that to manage the fallout and try to hold onto the policy, the district turned to ILC. The emails between Superintendent Peter Aiken and Samek were heavily redacted, but the tone was certainly chatty (“Let’s grab lunch again soon man,” writes Samek to Aiken at one point).

In the Red Lion District, ILC helped craft anti-trans policies about which bathrooms trans students may use, which sports teams they may join, and which pronouns they may use.

In one case, ILC returned to the scene of earlier work. Dover Area School Board hired the firm, for free. Dover previously made news 20 years ago when the board required that the science department teach Intelligent Design, yet another attempt to mask religious values in secular language. The district was challenged in court and lost. One of the attorneys who filed briefs on behalf of the district was Wenger, who at the time was working as a lawyer for the Foundation for Thoughts and Ethics, the Christian “think tank” that produced the intelligent design text that Dover used.

The list goes on and on. In Warwick, the board hired ILC prompting the superintendent to resign. Penn Manor School District hired ILC to whip up some anti-trans policies just months after a trans student committed suicide in the community. 

The ILC has been so busy that a map maintained by Pennsylvanians for Welcoming and Inclusive Schools helps track the ILC presence in Pennsylvania districts. 

But if you think all this successful cracking down would cause ILC to lay back and relax, well, not so much.

Another leap forward in book banning

ILC created an even broader version of a book ban, starting off in places like Bermudian Springs School District and Pequea Valley, where, according to Meredith Willse at York Daily Record, schools passed a restriction against books or any other material that "offends good taste or propriety."  Now a similar policy has been adopted by the Southern York County School District board.

Southern York already has a swell track record; last summer, it adopted an ILC-penned anti-LGBTQ policy. The district has previous banned books like Flamer. The district also reinstated a Native American mascot and canceled a noted Black chemist from some guest teaching spots in the school's science program because the chemist had previous made some statements about feeling excluded in the past due to her race. The district is about 90% white.

The new library policy, adopted unanimously by the board, further states that if a work includes vulgar language that offends good taste or propriety, that cancels out any intended serious literary, artistic, political, or value for the audience. In other words, the board will not allow the "artistic merit" defense for books with Naughty Language.

This goes beyond book ban laws that have prohibited depictions of sexual conduct or even divisive content rules. This rule says the board can yank anything that they find in any way improper or offends their particular taste. This rule doesn't much move the goalposts as it replaces them with a wispy cloud in a stiff breeze.

It's one more reminder that you can never, ever appease the culture warrior crowd, that they will never ever say, "Well, I think that's it. We are happy now that this line is drawn, and we will let you get back to business." They will never be happy until everything they disapprove of has been banished, and they will never, ever run out of things of which to disapprove. 

Free Market Myths and School Choice

Why the reformster love affair with the free market?

Every version of school choice we've been pitched over the past few decades is wedded to some form of free market dynamics. And yet it doesn't have to be.

Educational choice can take place within the public school framework. School districts in my area all offer a choice between a traditional school path or a career-technology school, and that's in districts that are relatively small. A school district could offer different educational paths under one roof, which, as I've argued before, would be less expensive for taxpayers and more flexible for students, who would face far fewer switching costs if they changed their minds (as teens do). The taxpayers would retain ownership of the facilities and could exercise accountability through their elected school board.

School choice within the public system certainly comes with some challenges (New Hampshire is wrestling with some of them while contemplating open enrollment). But there's no particular reason to assume that school choice must be wedded to a free market system. In fact, Doug Harris, Professor and Department Chair of Economics at Tulane, who has done plenty of reformster-friendly work, has laid out why the free market is a poor match for education. 

And yet, reformsters stay deeply attached to the free market, to the point that some appear to be more committed to the "convert education to free market commodity" part than the "give families educational choices" part. Schools are called "government schools" with contempt because such a system is, to some folks, a self-evident afront to free marketry. Calling public education a "monopoly" misuses the term to push the assumption that education is already in a free market framework. 

So what drives this attachment to the idea of unleashing free market forces in education? What are the myths behind this tunnel vision?

The free market is a magical moral good.

There are folks who just believe that a free market is in and of itself good, that even if it doesn't produce better or more equitable results, the country is still better off with a free market system. As myths go, it's a pretty one. Honestly, these believers might have more intellectual integrity than followers of any of the rest of these myths.

Competition makes things better.

For some folks, it is a fundamental truth that competition increases excellence. If public schools just had some private competition, the reasoning goes, they would be motivated to new heights of excellence.

But this assumes that some schools know how to be more awesome-- they just don't bother unless sufficiently threatened. Which is both wrong and insulting. 

Nor does competition always foster excellence. History is littered with companies that won the free market competition by means other than excellence, from VHS players to a whole lot of cable channels. The free market does not foster superior products; it fosters superior marketing. Yes, excellence can be a marketing tool, but there are many other ways to compete for market share.

Free market competition is excellent at sorting both customers and businesses into tiers-- rich and poor, winners and losers. The market is good at carving itself into different sectors of more or less privilege. That's not what we want for education; the national goal is not supposed to be getting some folks an educational Lexus and others an educational 1996 Kia. 

Plus, after years of free market education, we have plenty of data to tell us that it is not making education more excellent, at all.

Money is the only motivator that matters.

Equally cynical is the assumption among marketeers that the only thing that really matters in getting people to work in the education space is then chance to make money. That's why we need to attract people to leadership roles who have a track record of making money, and then we have to free them of the rules and regulations that would frustrate their drive to make money. 

Choice schools need to be run like unhampered visionary CEOs, because only the model of a profitable business makes sense for-- well, anything at all. Education. Health care. You name it. You have to model it on a business.

Foot-based accountability.

Free marketeers believe in voting with your feet. If a school is terrible, customers will desert it and it will suffer a deserved death, to be replaced by some newer, better school. But voting with your feet is not going to exert any serious market pressure.

A charter or private school only needs a small sliver of the market to stay in business. Witness charters like Success Academy that actively chase away families that don't fit their mold, not so much customers voting with feet as it is schools voting with their boot. 

But free marketeers believe that the education market should be unregulated, and that operators should be free to do as they please, and foot-based accountability was all that was needed. This goes all the way back to Milton Friedman, who was sure that nobody needed to make laws about racial discrimination because the market would iron all that out. That turned out not to be true, at all, and it holds true for schools that teach everything from flat earth theory to creationism.

Individuals take responsibility, but not for Those People.

For many fans of the invisible hand, free markets means individual responsibility. If you need a commodity from the market, getting it is your problem. So is making sure it's not junk. 

Here's the other accountability piece. It's not just that accountability is to the customer, but that there is no accountability to society at large. If a school is teaching racism or flat earth theory or The Flintstones were a documentary, that's the family's problem, as if releasing a bunch of mis-educated adults into society doesn't cause problems for everyone else.

For these marketeers, choice isn't really the issue at all. What is the issue is that the government is taking their tax dollars to help educate Those Peoples' Children, and that's gotta be some kind of socialism. If Those People want to send their kids to a decent school, then let Those People pay for it themselves. 

And if that means some people send their kids to a lousy school, well, that's fine. These marketeers don't think the market's tendency to pick winners and losers (they might say it "reveals" or "certifies" winners and losers) is a feature. not a bug, for putting people in their proper place. Public education is just one more commie social safety net that is working against the laws of nature. 

The kind of choice that should exist is an individual one, and the choices you have will depend on what you can afford. Which is, ironically, pretty much what we have already with real estate based school district funding.

What about culture warriors?

These folks muddy the waters because they are not interested in school choice at all. They would like to send taxpayer dollars to private Christian schools, and they would like to inject Christian Nationalism into whatever public schools they aren't able to dismantle. The rhetoric of school choice was just conveniently sitting there, and it provides some cover for their actual aims, but watch these folks oppose LGBTQ charters and Islamic voucher schools. They've teamed up with the marketeers, but like the previous alliance between Free Marketeers and those seeking educational equity solutions, this alliance between two groups that don't really have the same aims is probably eventually doomed.

Could there be myth-free school choice?

Absolutely. There's a whole other argument to had about the mythical nature of a free market, that all markets are created and maintained by government and unavoidably rigged in one direction or another. The mechanics of school choice do not require a free market system. It does not require schools to be run like a business. 

School choice doesn't have to be constructed on a framework of market dynamics. In fact, school choice could be done much better without those things-- provided we accept the notion that the goal is to get the best possible education to every student, regardless of zip code. We could do it, if the goal were actual educational choice and not the conversion of a public societal good into one more commodities market. And that remains a fundamental problem with the modern "school choice" movement. 

 

NE: Vouchers Sink Budget

As we noted last week, some Nebraska fans of taxpayer-funded vouchers tried--again--to get enact vouchers, this time through the sneaky technique of putting them in the budget. Instead of getting their vouchers, they raised a controversy that sank the entire budget.

State Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood, Appropriations Committee chair, removed the $3.5 million of voucher money, meant to bridge the gap between the end of the state's voucher program that was repealed by voters, and the beginning of the federal voucher system that Governor Pillen opted into (the voters get no say on that one). And lots of people were upset, as reported by the Nebraska Examiner.

Arguments for the voucher money were baloney. Sen. Christy Armendariz of Omaha argued that the vouchers were needed to protect poor kids who might be "kicked out" of public school. State Sen. Brad von Gillern of the Elkhorn area expressed frustration toward opponents, calling it hypocritical to oppose the measure when many of the same senators argue the state isn’t doing enough to help the poor.

“Shame on you,” von Gillern said. “If you make a pitch for poor people for any other reason, and you can’t support this, you’re a hypocrite.”

Except that vouchers are used mostly by wealthy, already-in-private-school students, and it's the private schools that get to pick their students, not vice versa. It is telling that the voucher crowd did not have anecdotes of poor children who had been kicked out of public school and had been rescued by vouchers. The program ran all this year, so those stories, if real, should have been easy enough to locate. 

Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams, the only Republican on Appropriations to oppose the $3.5 million in vouchers, criticized focus on this one issue, and also criticized the whole sneaky business of trying to slip this policy into the budget when there is no bill or law behind it. 

Said Tim Royers, president of Nebraska State Education Association--

This standoff is exactly why you don’t try and pass policy through the budget, especially when that policy is to extend an incredibly unpopular program that was repealed by voters in the most recent election. … We hope enough can come together and negotiate a path forward that keeps vouchers out of the budget.

So Nebraska voucherphiles managed to sink the state budget over a program that voters had already voted down. That's a bold stance to take and one can hope that Nebraska voters will deliver the reward they so richly deserve. It's yet another reminder, in a backhand way, that no matter how hard voucherphiles insist to the contrary, supporting taxpayer-funded school vouchers is not actually a winning political issue.

TX: A New Center Tracks Vouchers

Our Schools Our Democracy was set up in 2024 "to protect the fundamental rights of all Texans to a free, quality public education" at a time when those rights were under a concerted attack. Now they have come up with a new organization and some excellent tools for dealing with the Texas march toward privatization.

The Texas Center for Voucher Transparency is a timely organization for Texans, as Governor Greg Abbott and his fellow voucher lovers continue to push for privatization of public education. Over the years, Abbott has had trouble getting past democracy, especially those pesky rural representatives and their tendency to represent their constituent's wishes instead of Abbott's beloved plans. Even with outside help, it has been a tough haul.

And it has been crystal clear that what the voucherphiles of Texas want is not so much actual school choice as much as it is a way to funnel taxpayer dollars to private Christian schools. Everything that research predicted-- schools that pick their students, wasted taxpayer dollars, vouchers that mostly fund families who were already in private schools-- it's all happening in Texas.

So the time is right for a center that tracks all the voucher shenanigans. A place that collects the research and tales of voucher irresponsibility. It's a billion-dollar taxpayer0funded program-- surely somebody ought to be keeping an eye on it. The TXCVT goal:

To uphold the public trust and ensure that Texans have timely, credible information about how the voucher program operates, who it benefits, and how it affects public schools and communities.

One exceptionally cool tool is the School Locator Map. The map shows the location of every school in the state-- public, charter, and private. It shows their ranking on Texas evaluation system, and you can also break it down by county or by elected representative. There's a wealth of information here, though you can see very quickly one truth about school choice in Texas-- it's really only available for families in the urban areas. The vast majority of counties in Texas have no "choice" options-- and yet, their residents get to contribute their tax dollars to help fund vouchers in the cities. 

It's a great batch of resources. If you are in Texas, you should be aware of them, and if you are in any other state, you should be jealous of them-- jealous enough to either find the resources available in your state or to get something started.

ICYMI: Maple Syrup Edition (3/22)

A little field trip yesterday to a maple syrup producing farm, where they are boiling the last catch of the season. If you are used to the picture of a bucket hanging under a tap on a tree, I can tell you that more modern operations involve a tap hooked to a hose that runs through a network of other hoses to a main collection tank that uses some suction to collect the sap. Lot of technical steps after that, too, mostly involving some impressive machinery. However, I feel confident that AI will not take over the maple industry any time soon.

In the meantime, here's this week's reading list. In case you're new here, let me mention that A) this list generally doesn't include any pieces that I referenced or wrote about during the week and B) your mission is to take any pieces that you think are particularly valuable and amplify them through your own channels.

Public schools bombarded by families scrambling for special education assessments tied to Texas voucher money

Texas has a voucher system that incentivizes specials needs (if your child has them, you get extra taxpayer dollars). So now a bunch of parents want their public school to certify that their child has special needs so that those parents can pull that child out of public school.

The "Education Freedom" Myth Gets Its Wild West Makeover

Josh Cowen hates to say he told them so, but when it comes to Texas and their taxpayer-funded vouchers, he told them so. Includes lots of useful links to research.

Punishing Children: Why the Attack on Plyler v. Doe Is an Attack on America’s Core Values

You may not know much about Plyler, but you're going to hear about it plenty. Bruce Lesley explains why it's a big deal.

Highest performing Ohio Charter Schools still have 30% Ds and Fs on State Report Card. Public School Districts have 30% As.

Stephen Dyer breaks down some numbers, and they provide one more piece of proof of the mediocrity of Ohio charter schools.

Moms for Liberty’s “Toxic” Tiffany Justice Is Out at Heritage

Maurice Cunningham caught an interesting piece of news this week-- Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice lasted less than a year in her cushy Heritage Foundation gig.

When Literacy Reform Meets the Classroom

Cooper Sved at the Albert Shanker Institute blog writes about the miserable crap that happens when someone wants to teach but they have to wrestle with tightly standardized curriculum in a box instead.

Massachusetts: Highest Court Says Charter School Must Comply With State Public-Records Law

Shawgi Tell checks in on another court case in which charter schools try to avoid the whole public-or-private question. 

A viral case against screens in schools is winning converts. Does the evidence hold up?

I am so glad that Matt Barnum is back at Chalkbeat. In this piece, he looks at the growing argument that points at screens as the culprits behind the great test score dip.

America’s math and reading scores tanked after schools ditched textbooks for screens—and AI could worsen the brain rot

Meanwhile, Sasha Rogelberg is helping push that same theory at Fortune.

KY bill pushing religion over school education is immoral

Kentucky is considering one of those bills that mandates letting students out of school to go attend a "moral instruction" class. Linda Allewalt argues this is, in fact, immoral.

Arizona ESA LEGO Spending

Jen Jennings has been digging through the Arizona taxpayer-funded voucher spending and fining some real whoppers. These graphics look at just the spending on LEGOs alone.

Conservative parents and teachers unions become unlikely allies fighting tech in schools

I told you a couple of weeks ago that M4L was sounding not-crazy on ed tech. Some state unions are deciding the same thing.

Our Experience with i-Ready

Not good. The experience was not good. But if you are wondering why people complain about i-Ready, this will give you plenty of specifics. If you already know, this will let you know you're not alone. This is painful.

Failing Up: From Nashville to Chicago

TC Weber provides a ground-level example of yet another one of these guys who never, ever suffer for their failure. Watch out, Chicago-- he's headed your way.

April 1st: Supreme Court Will Hear Oral Arguments on Trump’s Exec. Order to Deny Birthright Citizenship

Jan Resseger remains the queen of explaining what the heck is going on and what people have to say about it.

Grade Retention: The Debate Had Its Day, Now End It!

Nancy Bailey provides some final words on the eternal debate about holding students back a grade.

The False Promise of Education "Miracles" and Misunderstanding Standardized Test Scores

Paul Thomas looks at the history of education miracles, and what it can tell us about any current reading miracles, like the one in Mississippi.

AI Is Coming For Your Job (and Mine Too)

Jennifer Berkshire checks to see if her job is in danger, and if the dream of retraining and education can protect anybody.

AI ‘Slop’ Is Flooding Children’s Media. Parents Should Be Very Alarmed.

Emily Tate Sullivan at The 74 has an important story about the tidal wave of AI slop aimed at children who are using Youtube or other video platforms. If you are the parent of such a child, you need to read this.

Heather Cox Richardson talks to Josh Cowen

It's an interview on Youtube with America's leading daily historian talking to one of the biggest experts on the problems of school vouchers. Well worth 40 minutes of your time.

Measles Is Back on the Faculty Meeting Agenda

Matt Brady goes down the measles rabbit hole and bring backs information about the disease and advice about how to deal with it in school.

Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance: Kochtopus Flunkey

Maurice Cunningham, the dark money expert, finds the Koch machine spreading its tentacles again in Massachusetts.

This High School Student Invented a Filter That Eliminates 96 Percent of Microplastics From Drinking Water

Just a reminder that high school students can accomplish pretty extraordinary things.

Meanwhile, at Forbes.com, I looked at a measure of teacher morale across the country, and a court case that used some interesting ju jitsu to keep prayer out of the classroom in Louisiana.

I like music that finds new ways to re-create itself, and I love musicians who are having fun doing their thing, so I love this version of a song that is not exactly a classic.

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NE: Trying To Get Vouchers Past Voters

Nebraska's voucher fans are bound and determined, like legislators in many states, to get around the voters so they can get vouchers installed.

In May of 2023, Nebraska’s Governor Jim Pillen signed into law LB 753, creating tax credit vouchers for subsidizing private schools.

The concept has been floated in Nebraska before, notably turning up more than once in 2022’s session. In 2023, it finally progressed through the legislature. But NSEA political action director Brian Nikkelson told the Nebraska Examiner that the public did not support the vouchers, and if the bill was passed, there would be a petition drive to force the bill to go on the ballot for voters to decide.

And so there was. It was a heck of a battle, with the pro-voucher forces have attracting a mountain of money, some of it from outside the state. Paul Hammel at the Nebraska Examiner reported that big money contributors include C.L. Werner, an Omaha-based trucking company executive ($100,000), Tom Peed and his son Shawn of a Lincoln publishing company ($75,000 each), and former Nebraska governor U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts ($25,000). Governor Pillen himself has contributed $100,000 to the campaign to save vouchers from a vote.

At the same time, Hammel reported, the American Federation for Children, the school choice advocacy group founded by Betsy DeVos, has contributed $103,000 in in-kind services and $583,000 in cash to the campaign.

It didn't matter. Support Our Schools needed 60,000 signatures to force a referendum. They ended up with about twice that number (that's roughly 10% of all eligible voters in the state). So this November, the voters of Nebraska were supposed to have their say. So you'd expect that voucher fans, who keep telling us how much everyone loves vouchers, would just sit back, secure in the knowledge that their program would win the referendum handily.

Well, no.

Instead, legislators cooked up LB 1402. This bill proposed to repeal the Opportunity Scholarships that were created under LB 753, and then to replace them with a new version of Opportunity Scholarships. This version would have been an education savings account (ESA) style super-voucher that hands over taxpayer money to send a student to a private or parochial school. It was more sketchy than last year's bill because it appropriates state funds (rather than tax-credited contributions) to pay for the vouchers.

But mostly what it did it render the petition drive moot, because it repealed the version of vouchers that the public was going to vote on. "Ha," they apparently thought. "That'll stop those damned voters."

In 67 days, the coalition of opponents gathered the necessary signatures—again. That repeal passed in November 2024, with 45 out of 49 legislative districts voting to repeal, and Nebraska's voucher law was toast. The voters had sent a clear and unequivocal message. 

Surely the state's leaders would say, "Well, the voters have spoken, so that's that."

Fat chance.

Voucherphiles were back with a new proposal in January 2025. “I’m not dissuaded by the fact that it was defeated at the ballot box,” said freshman State Sen. Tony Sorrentino of Omaha. 

To nobody's surprise, Governor Jim Pillen was first to jump on the as-yet-rule-free federal school voucher proposal. Okay, it was a small surprise, because Nebraska is not known for grabbing federal dollars, but hey-- this is Free Federal Money for private schools. In fact, U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., helped Congress usher the tax credits provision onto President Donald Trump’s desk, even though his home district was among those shooting down vouchers in 2024. 

Pillen's new idea is to sell vouchers for the "gap" year, the year between the time when Nebraska's vouchers are required to end and the time when the federal vouchers are supposed to kick in. The proposal is being sent through the state's Labor Department rather than the Department of Education because that would skirt the requirement for any sort of hearing or debate, probably because voucherphiles have a pretty good idea of how that would go. 

Nebraska is one of those states where rural Republicans have opposed all attempts at vouchers, and they aren't sounding any friendlier about this one. Zach Wendling at Nebraska Examiner talked to State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth, a Republican who opposed Linehan’s previous proposals; he said he is opposed to using any public money for private school choice. He’s still waiting to see how the federal tax credit program includes public schools (because, remember, there are no actual rules yet attached to the federal voucher program). 

“The referendum simply eliminated that. Period, end of story,” he continued on the state policy. “There’s no other interpretation you can draw from that.”

The gap funding would cost about $5 million for around 2,500 students. Of course, with no rules in place, it's possible that not all of Nebraska's current voucher students would qualify for federal vouchers. Nor can we predict what slice of the federal money pie Nebraska would be entitled to. If it comes to that, we could expect voucherphiles to argue that more gap funding is needed to cover new gaps, or maybe to expand above and beyond the federal offerings. 

Nebraska voucher fans are making a lot of "think of the children" noises, but families have plenty of time to look for new arrangements (i.e. finding the student a new school or going back to paying the full tuition with their own money). 

This is the same story we've seen over and over again. Vouchers never win when voters have a chance to be heard. Every single taxpayer-funded voucher program in this country has been created without giving the taxpayers a say or ignoring the say they had already said. Taxpayer-funded vouchers are all the result of legislators backed by deep-pocketed voucher fans deciding they are going to inflict these on the taxpayers. Nebraska's taxpayers just happen to have a few more tools to fight back with, but Nebraska's voucherphiles just keep looking for a way to avoid that whole pesky democracy thing. 

PA: An AI Safety Bill

In Pennsylvania, a bipartisan group is pushing SB 1090, a bill "providing for disclosures and safeguards relating to the use of artificial intelligence." 

It's short and sweet and doesn't go far enough, but it's something. The meat of it is in these next few bits:

Disclosure of nonhuman status.--If a reasonable person interacting with an AI companion would be misled to believe the person is interacting with a human, an operator shall issue a clear and conspicuous notification indicating that the AI companion is artificially generated and not human.

"Reasonable person" is doing a hell of a lot of work here. 

The bill would also require AI "operators" to "maintain and implement a protocol" to prevent its bots from producing suicidal ideation, suicide, or self-harm content to users, or content that directly encourages the user to commit acts of violence. That protocol should include suicide hotline or crisis text line if the user expresses thoughts about self-harm.

Even better, the bill would require that if "the operator knows or should have known" that the user is a minor, they must provide notification that the user is not interacting with a human being. They must also provide a "clear and conspicuous notification" at least once every three hours that the user should take a break and, again, that they are talking to a non-human bot. The AI should also be prevented from producing sexually explicit images or giving the minor instructions on sexually explicit conduct. 

Bots also have to come with a cyber-label saying "this might not be suitable for minors."

The Attorney General gets to enforce this. The state can fine an operator up to $10,000 for each violation (on top of any other remedies provided by law). $10K is, of course, couch cushion money for most tech companies, but this whole law is a hell of a lot better than one more chorus "Everyone better get their kids on AI before they are left behind in the awesome world of tomorrow that AI is going to launch any day now." Dragging them into court is the only thing that might get our tech overlords' attention, so it's encouraging to see legislatures showing a willingness to make that happen. 

The Mystery of Eighth Grade Test Results

Jill Barshay at Hechinger took a look at the Mississippi "Miracle," specifically the question of why the miraculous 4th grade test results have not been matched by the 8th grade. She shared many theories about what might help, a conversation that Mike Petrilli continued in his substack. But I think, as always, the discussion of this topic skips an important point. I'm going to skip my usual Big Standardized Test rant and save the Mississippi thing for another day. Let's just talk about the 8th grade test scores and what they tell us about 13-year-olds and testing.

The 8th grade test dip is not news to anyone who has been paying attention. One of the great unstudied effects of the BS Test era is just how many districts reorganized their elementary. middle, or high schools in order to put their 8th graders under the same roof as another test group and hopefully blunt the effects of their lousy grades on the specific school. (If your middle school is just grades 6-8, then your 8th grade scores are the school scores, but if, say, your high school is grades 7-12, then the 8th grade scores get lumped in with 11th grade scores).

But any discussion of 8th grade scores needs to consider the Giving A Shit factor.

8th grade is the year when everything breaks loose for students. Their bodies betray them, becoming ungainly and hard to manage. They have whole new sets of feelings, whole new drama-fraught social lives to manage. They have to work out how to deal with their parents, who have somehow become way more dumb and obnoxious than they used to be. School gets hard because learning gets hard, harder than in elementary school when it just sort of happened, and it begins to dawn on students that adults are not always reliable or trustworthy.

Testing has, of course, given rise to a new set of springtime traditions. The pre-test pep rally. The pre-test hype video. The pre-test earnest talk. The elementary students may still get some inspiration from these, but now you've got eighth graders who have been through this year after year, test after test, practice test after practice test. 

The entire foundation of test-based accountability is the assumption that students will sit down to take the test and actually care and actually try. Elementary kids? They are game to throw themselves at whatever you give them to do. 11th graders? They have learned that there is some senseless baloney you have to work through in the adult world. But 8th graders? Nobody has fewer shits to give about your adult nonsense than an 8th grader.

Every time this discussion comes up, I just imagine some bureaucrat in a suit standing in front of a bunch of 8th graders telling them, "I know every one of you is going to do their very best, because while this test has no stakes at all for you, how else will researchers and policy makers and academics  be able to have data-based discussions about the educational effects of instructional techniques and curricular policies?"

Don't get me wrong. 8th graders can be awesome, the energy and heart of elementary students combined with the knowledge and sense of high schoolers. 8th graders will absolutely give their blood and guts and hearts to an endeavor when they can see an authentic, real reason, a reason they can see and feel in their bones. 

Where in the battery of the Big Standardized Test do you think they'll find that? 

All the discussions of other factors-- the screens, the social media, the knowledge-based learning, the high-quality instructional materials, test designs, the leveling of reading materials-- that's all worth having. But I wish everyone worked up about testing would--well, you know what I wish when it comes to testing, but at least I would like them to ask themselves one question:

You want students to give their best, most intense and serious effort when it comes time to take the test.

Why should they want to do that?

The More Reforms Change

So here's the story.

The Secretary of Education sends the President a memo (91 pages!) arguing that the Department of Education should be dismantled as part of plan to get education sent back to the states. In its zeal to promote national security and reduce inequality, argues the secretary, the federal government has adopted "an overly intrusive federal role.”

The details of the proposal include moving department functions to other departments, such as sending Pell Grants  and loan programs to Treasury and the Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department. Indian Education programs could go to Interior. The secreary explained that the move of the OCR would be with the aim of “making local and state resolution of complaints the first recourse.” Let Alabama and Georgia decide whether they are violating anyone's civil rights by promoting inequality in education.

The "large scale funding" of the department needs to be reversed because it is "one of the factors responsible for the present imbalance of the federal budget." Cutting around 27% of the federal budget should provide “encouragement to the states to shoulder a greater share of the responsibility for delivering educational services.” 

And what funding remains should be provided to the states in no-string block grants, piles of money that the states can spend as they wish.

The federal governmentj has no business managing educaation, particularly because under Certain Administrations, the department serves certain special interest groups. Also, dismantling the department would be in line with the President's campaign promises.

The Secretary of Education was Terrel Bell, the President was Ronald Reagan, and the year was 1981.

In other words, Trump-McMahon policies are 45 years old. They didn't start with Trump, and they won't end with him. The dismantling of the department--particularly the disempowerment of the OCR-- and the slashing of funding and funding oversight -- that's been the dream of some folks on the right since about fifteen minutes after the department was created. 

Note: I came across the story playing with a new EdWeek feature that lets you search for the big stories from the year you started in education. It does not actually go back to the year I entered the classroom, it got close enough to cough up this reminder that some parts of the anti-public education hustle are plenty old.

ICYMI: Out Of The Office Edition (3/15)

I am away from the Curmudgucation Institute home base this weekend, off to a whirlwind trip to the Seattle branch office, so the reading list may not be as rigorous as usual. And the time difference may factor in as well. 

How Did This Happen???

Jennifer Berkshire observes that as backlash against ed tech grows, some folks seem to have conveniently forgotten who pushed some of this stuff in the first place.

Nebraska braces for latest private school funding, vouchers fight, now eyeing $3.5M

Let's throw more money at private schools, declares Nebraska's governor. Zach Wendling reports for Nebraska Examiner.

One-third of Arizona school districts at financial risk amid ESA growth

In the race to privatize public schools into oblivion, Arizona is a leader. A new report shows how many school districts are in trouble in the voucher state. Steven Sarabia has the story for Arizona's Family.

Taxpayer-funded school vouchers used for Disneyland trips

Speaking of Arizona's taxpayer-funded vouchers, Craig Harris at 12News has been doing outstanding work as the news unit digs into what, exactly, those Arizona taxpayer-funded vouchers are being spent on (spoiler alert: not education).

Demand for student teacher stipends outstrips supply as Shapiro proposes boosting program

Pennsylvania started giving student teachers a stipend, and that program is going pretty well. Yes, there's an old farty part of me that says Kids These Days should just suck it up like we did Back in My Day. But as a Pennsylvanian who wishes we were way better at attracting and retaining teachers, I have to admit this makes sense.

Teaching Writing is Personal.

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider writes about teaching writing.

Are public schools part of the government, civil society, or both?\

This week, in the Posts Worth Reading By People I Generally Disagree With, Mike Petrilli says folks should stop calling public schools "government schools." 

MAGA Promotes “Same Old” Dangerous School Vouchers with a New “Culture War” Frame\

As always, Jan Resseger does a fine job of bringing together some excellent commentary on the continuing trouble of privatizing school.

Hate Definitely Has a Home Here

Nancy Flanagan wonders where we are as a nation, and how teachers are supposed to deal with it.

The Alarm Bell Experiment (n=1)

Matt Brady tries consuming a teen style online video diet, and he learns a few things in the process.

The AI Education Grift

Thomas Ultican has some doubts about the intentions of the AI-in-education crowd.

When Correlation Repeats Across 50 States

Jared Cooney Horvath is an author and scholar who did some research looking at the connection between those drooping NAEP scores and a state's digital adoption, and the results are... not good.

Logged In, Tuned Out

Meredith Coffey walks us through the last fifteen years of ed tech in this piece for the often=ignorable Education Next. But this piece has some solid sections (at last, someone who agrees with me that "digital natives" are not all that tech savvy). 

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI

Alice Speri at The Guardian collects a few pointed reactions to the rise of AI and the attempts to resist.

Against Maxxing

John Warner looks at the bizarre world of maxxing and shares some thoughts (including education maxxing). "We are just fine as we are, my fellow humans."

Gullible, Cynical America

Adam Serwer at the Atlantic writes about how many of us have become both disbelievers and suckers all at the same time.

Class Action Alleges That Grammarly Misappropriated the Names of Journalists and Authors Through its “Expert Review” That Lets Users Get Feedback on Writing From Experts

The grifters at Grammarly have unloaded a new scam, and this time they're getting taken to court over it. May they lose, big time. More details here. 

Some music is best played on the back porch, maybe even with a dog. 

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