ICYMI: Post-Independence Day Edition (7/5)

In our town, the annual fireworks display is set off pretty much across the river from my back yard. So every year we have a cookout, mt brother and some friends come over and after supper, we play some traditional jazz in the backyard where anyone in the neighborhood can hear. Then the fireworks happen. There's no doubt that some years feel different than others, but our country has so many terrible chapters that it's impossible not to live through some of them. At the same time, our most immediate sphere of control involves watching out for the friends and family and community that is in our immediate vicinity. So we try to do that.

Meanwhile, I've got a reading list for you from the week. Remember to share.

South Georgia librarian is fired over LGBTQ children’s book included in summer reading display

Another one of these damned stories. She's got a lawyer; we'll see if that helps.

‘I Don’t Want Any Light Shining on Our District:’ Schools Serving Undocumented Kids Go Underground

The 74 was launched as a bad faith exercise in reformsterism and political hackery, but they still manage to put out valuable stories like this. Jo Napolitano looks at school districts that are trying to evade the long arm of the anti-diversity regime.

Cyber school facing wrongful death suit says it’s ‘unreasonable’ for teachers to see students weekly

I've written about Commonwealth Charter Academy many times, because they are a profiteering real estate-grubbing company disguised as a cyber school. Katie Meyer at Spotlight PA has this story about how CCA is resisting the state's mandate to make even a minimal effort to take care of its students.

 

Public Money, Private Control: Inside New Orleans’ Charter School Overhaul

Big Easy magazine does another post-mortem of the New Orleans charter experiment (which has now been running for twenty years) and finds, once again, that it's not as great a model as reformsters want to believe.

The Chan-Zuckerbergs stopped funding social causes. 400 kids lost their school.

From the Washington Post, one more example of why depending on flakey fauxlanthropists is not a great plan for schools.

Billionaires Support Corrupted Science of Reading 

Thomas Ultican looks at some of the forces trying to sell the Science of Reading

Making Sense of Trump's K-12 Budget Slashing

Jennifer Berkshire puts the regime budget slashing in the context of some broader, uglier ideologies at work.

Whatever Happened to Values Clarification

Oh, the misspent days of my youth, when Values Clarification was a thing. Larry Cuban takes us back to this little chapter of history.

Trump Administration Axes Funding for Key K-12 Education Programs on One Day’s Notice

Jan Resseger reports on the Trump initiative to just withhold funds from schools because, well, he feels like it.

Reading is the door to freedom

Jesse Turner on reading and his time spent teaching on the Tohono O'odham Reservation.

Fiscal Year Ends in Chaos for Florida Schools

Florida continues to set the standard for assaulting public education. Sue Kingery Woltanski reports on latest budgetary shenanigans.

Firms belonging to wife of Rep. Donalds grabbed millions in charter school contracts

Speaking of Florida shenanigans, here's a piece from Florida Bulldog that looks at the many ways that Erika Donalds has enriched herself with education funds. You Florida fans will recognize many of the names in this piece by Will Bredderman.

Unconstitutional Voucher Program Can't Be Fixed Easily

Policy expert Stephen Dyer has been all over the recent successful challenge to an Ohio voucher program. Where do they go next? No place easy.

The Trump Administration is Ending Special Education!

Nancy Bailey explains how the new Trumpian budget slashing may well end special ed as we know it.

California colleges spend millions to catch plagiarism and AI. Is the faulty tech worth it?

Turnitin is now in the AI detection biz, and it's just as scammy as their old business model. Tara Garcia Mathewson at Cal Matters has the story.

The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger

If you're thinking that maybe AI isn't all that awesome, you have plenty of company. Reece Rogers reports for Wired.

Make Fun Of Them

Ed Zitron points out that our tech overlords are mostly dopes, and we should make fun of them for it.

This week at Forbes.com  I took a look at what the Senate's version of federal vouchers looks like. At the Bucks County Beacon, I broke down the Mahmoud v. Taylor decision.

Tuba Skinny is the band I'd like to play in when I grow up.

Subscribe to my newsletter and stay caught up on the Curmudgucation Institute output. 

What About A Civics Education Moonshot?

Colleen Shogan and John Bridgeland are in The Hill arguing for a K-16 civics education "moonshot," and I'm pretty sure we need that like we need more comfortable seats on a sinking ship-- it's not a terrible idea, but it doesn't address the real problem.

Shogan and Bridgeland point with alarm to the terrible results on civics testing for everyone between birth and death in this country. These two are with More Perfect, a bi-partisanish group that wants Americans to play together better, and I'm pretty sure that they are well aware that tests of civic knowledge are not the biggest signs around that civics knowledge is in a bit of a slump these days.

But their prescription is back-to-basics education about the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, separation of powers-- all that good stuff. Plus 

Schools must teach about the virtues of pluralism, productive disagreement and critical thinking. We are teaching a generation to code; we should also teach them to decode news and information. What’s more, civics education should not begin and end with one course — it should also provide inspiring inquiries across the curriculum, kindergarten through college, to link learning with practical civic applications.

Plus history, "despite loud voices claiming the discipline has fallen victim to political indoctrination and ideological excess." Plus debate and consensus. With discussions including "scope of various levels of government, the merits of the social safety net, the roles of civil society and individuals in addressing key challenges, the disparate impacts on different populations and America’s place in the world."

Sigh.

First, my reaction is that A) some of this is already well covered by many schools and that B) what do you want to cut out of the curriculum to make room for more civics? Cause if there's anything teachers love, it's when they're in the middle of juggle fifteen balls, some thought leader sidles up to say, "We'd like you to add a couple more balls here. I know you're busy, but, gosh, this is really important. Thanks."

Second, is this really a school problem?

I mean, sure-- students should be taught the basics of how government is designed to work in this country. However, I'll bet you that schools are already doing this, already. 

The problem is not that schools are failing to teach civics. The problem is that schools could run the tap wide open with civics education 6 hours a day, 180 days a year, and it would still not be enough to counteract the firehose of civics misinformation, lies and bullshit being pumped into American society.

We've got christianist nationalism, complete with piles of ahistorical books establishing a fictional history as truth. We have multiple elected officials, plus an entire regime on a second term devoted to installing an authoritarian monarchy. We've got entire media structures devoted to spreading bullshit and lies about how the country is or should be working. Oh, and some of that stuff about history and pluralism is illegal to teach in some states.

Yeah, we've got a MAGA administration and Fox News, but sire, the civics problem in this country is because Mrs. Fleenswoggle didn't spend enough time on separation of powers with her fifth grade class last week.

Americans' problem is not that they weren't taught about our government in school. It's that there are a whole lot of folks investing time and money and energy into selling citizens of all ages an alternative history of the United States. If you expect a bunch of high school civics teachers to somehow counteract that, you should probably take your copy of the Declaration and use it to roll up some of your preferred legal-in-some-states recreational drug.

We have always had civics challenges in this country. Since Day One, lots of folks here don't believe in democracy because they don't believe in equality. Our founders didn't agree on anything, and so our origin is loaded with contradictions and tensions. We have history stuffed with moments in which politicians worked hard to get their own way in spite of the rules rather than by following them. There isn't a single line in the Constitution that someone hasn't tried to get around. It is the most American thing in the world to deliberately try to ignore, forget, or rewrite what you know about civics. 

But sure--let's lay fixing all that on the education system. 

Educating children about the way the government is supposed to work is necessary and important work. But if your real goal is to get a nation where more people know, comprehend, and embrace our national civic life, you're going to need a much bigger and better plan than turning to school teachers and saying, "Hey, teach that stuff harder, will you."

What The Free Market Does For Education and Equality

"Unleash market forces" has been a rallying cry of both the right and some nominally on the left for the past twenty-some years. The free market and private operators do everything better! Competition drives improvement! 

It's an okay argument for toasters. It's a terrible argument for education.

The free market does not foster superior quality; the free market fosters superior marketing. And as we've learned in the more recent past, the free market also fosters enshittification-- the business of trying to make more money by actively making the product worse (see: Google, Facebook, and any new product that requires you to subscribe to get the use of basic features). 

We know what competition drives in an education market-- a competition to capture the students who give you the most marketable "success" for the lowest cost. The most successful school is not one that has some great new pedagogical miracle, but the one that does the best job of keeping high-testing students ("Look at our numbers! We must be great!") and getting rid of the high-cost, low-scoring students. Or, if that's your jam, the success is the one that keeps away all those terrible LGBTQ and heathen non-believer students. The kind of school that lets parents select a school in tune with their 19th century values.

The market, we are repeatedly told, distinguishes between good schools and bad ones. But what does the free market do really, really well?

The free market distinguished between people who have money and people who don't.

This is what school choice is about, particularly the brand being pushed by the current regime.

"You know what I like about the free market," says Pat Gotbucks. "I can buy a Lexus. In fact, not only can I buy a Lexus, but if you can't, that's not my problem. I can buy really nice clothes, and if you can't, that's not my problem. Why can't everything work like that? Including health care and education?"

It's an ideology that believes in a layered society, in a world in which some people are better and some people are lesser. Betters are supposed to be in charge and enjoy wealth and the fruits of society's labor. Lessers are supposed to serve, make do with society's crumbs, and be happy about it. To try to mess with that by making the Betters give the Lessers help, by trying to elevate the Lessers with social safety nets or DEI programs-- that's an offense against God and man.

Why do so many voters ignore major issues in favor of tiny issues that barely affect anyone? Because the rich getting richer is part of the natural order of things, and trans girls playing girls sports is not.

What will the free market do for education? It will restore the natural order. It will mean that Pat Gotbucks can put their own kids in the very best schools and assert that what happens to poor kids or brown kids of Black kids or anybody else's kids is not Pat's problem. If Pat wants a benevolent tax dodge, Pat can contribute to a voucher program, confident that thanks to restrictive and discriminatory private school policies, Pat's dollars will not help educate Those People's Children. 

Pat's kids get to sit around a Harkness table at Philips Exeter, and the children of meat widgets get a micro-school, or some half-bakes AI tutor, and that's as it should be, because after all, it's their destiny to do society's grunt work and support their Betters. 

One of the huge challenges in this country has always been, since the first day a European set foot on the North American continent, that many folks simply don't believe that it is self-evident that all people are created equal. They believe that some people are better than others--more valuable, more important, more deserving of wealth, more entitled to rule. Consequently, they don't particularly believe in democracy, either, (and if they do, it's in some modified form in which only certain Real Americans should have a vote).

The argument for the many layers of status may be "merit" or achievement or race or "culture" or, God help us, genetics. But the bottom line is that some folks really are better than others, and that's an important and real part of life and trying to fix it or compensate for it is just wrong. For these folks, an education system designed to elevate certain people is just wrong, and a system that gives lots of educational opportunities to people whose proper destiny is flipping burgers or tightening bolts is just wasteful. 

For these folks, what the free market in education means is that people get the kind of education that is appropriate for their place in life, and that the system should be a multi-tiered system in which families get the education appropriate to their status in society. And it is not an incidental feature of such a system that the wealthy do not have to help finance education for Other Peoples' Children.  

It's an ideology that exists in opposition to what we say we are about as a nation and in fact announces itself with convoluted attempts to explain away the foundational ideas of this country. Public education is just one piece of the foundation, but it's an important one. 

Trump's Ed Department Stiffs Schools Billions of Dollars

This week, schools across the country were supposed to receive billions of dollars in aid. It was approved and designated by Congress. 

But the day before the money was supposed to go out, the Education Department, in one of its special unsigned emails, told states, "Nah, we don't want to."

The five targeted programs:

Title I-C for migrant education ($375 million)
Title II-A for professional development ($2.2 billion)
Title III-A for English-learner services ($890 million)
Title IV-A for academic enrichment ($1.3 billion)
Title IV-B for before- and after-school programs ($1.4 billion)

Plus a last-minute addition of adult basic and literacy education

The six programs had been targeted for the axe in the department's 2026 budget request. The justifications for the cuts tells us where the regime's thinking lies. For example, migrant education should be cut, they say, because "This program has not been proven effective and encourages ineligible non citizens to access taxpayer dollars stripping resources from American students." Several were to be incorporated into the department's new "Do whatever the hell you want with this small pile of money" grants to the states, but of course that's not what's happening here.

This appears to be another use of "impoundment," an illegal means by which Congress uses its Constitutional power of the purse and the President just refuses to hand the money over. Russell Vought, the guy who helped write Project 2025 and now runs the Office of Management and Budget, has been pushing this technique for the regime. It's a perfect fit for Trump, who famously has a history of simply refusing to pay what he owes to contractors. 

States are working out the costs, which are huge. Kris Nordstrom, senior policy analyst at the Education and Law Project, has worked out the details for North Carolina, and they are huge. $154 million  for the state (enough to hire 1,960 new teachers). Or you can figure it as the hundreds of dollars per students. Nordstrom points out that the districts that will be hardest hit are the poor ones. Expect that to be true across the country.

I don't know that there's anything new to learn from this. The regime has been clear that it does not want to provide supports for public education or (certain shades of) immigrants or any programs run by the Department of Education. The callousness displayed toward the fate of actual human post-fetal children in this country is such an omnipresent feature of this regime that it's hard to take it all in. 

In many states, these cuts come right after the district budgeting cycle, meaning that some schools will be scrambling to figure out what their shortfall will be. Meanwhile, expect lawsuits over this funding cut to join all the other lawsuits over illegal funding cuts (e.g. the billion-dollar cut of school mental health services).

That could help. Of course, first they'd have to win, then someone would have to force the regime to honor the court's judgment. Good luck with all of that. 

ID: Attorney General Clarifies That Everyone Not Welcome There

Well, here's an ugly little coda to the story of Sarah Inama.

Quick recap. Sarah Inama is a 6th grade world civilizations teacher in West Ada School District (the largest district in the state). She had two posters in her classroom. Here they are.





She was told to take them down. She did. Then she went home, thought about it, and put the second one, the one with many skin tones hands, back up. She's been told to get rid of it by year's end. She took her story to a local reporter, and then all hell broke loose.

We know a lot more now thanks to some stellar reporting by Carly Flandro and the folks at Idaho Ed News, who FOIAed 1200 emails surrounding this. You should read the resulting stories (here and here).

The bill (House Bill 41) under which Inama was punished went into effect this week, Idaho Ed News got its hands on a copy of the guidance offered by the state Attorney General's office to the Idaho Ed Department, including some thoughts about whether Inama's "Everyone Is Welcome Here" sign broke the law. AG Raul Labrador offered opinions that were both alarming and rooted in falsehoods.

The signs are illegal because they are "part of an ideological/social movement which started in Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump," says the AG, who links to a 2017 news story in which the founders of that movement explain that they were in response to racist graffiti that appeared on a school the day after Trump's first election. They told local tv "their movement was about combating hate and was nonpartisan and secular." He claims that Inama first displayed the sign in 2017 during the height of the movement.

Inama wasn't even a teacher in 2017. Labrador also argues that Democrats sell the signs for fundraising. Dems started selling the signs with no profit margin after Inama's story broke.

The AG guidance also includes directions about avoiding flags of nations "engaged in hostile action" with the US, a vague designation coming with vague explanation.

The Department asks, "Are there legal definitions for political expression, religious expression, or ideological expression? If not, do you have any suggestions for our guidance as to how to determine whether a display is representing such an expression?" The AG responds with some dictionary definitions of some of those terms, but has no actual legal guidance to offer.

Idaho Ed News and reporter Emma Epperly have more details, but the implications are clear enough. In Trump's America, any message of inclusivity is political (as is, I guess, anything at all that disagrees with Dear Leader) and therefor illegal.

Not only that, but the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Idaho has declared that posting "Everyone Is Welcome Here" in a school is illegal, from which we must conclude that in Idaho, official policy says that everyone is NOT welcome in their schools, and children are certainly not be given the idea that everyone is welcome. It's a spectacular level of officially-mandated racism. I don't know how many Idaho residents are embarrassed, but I'm embarrassed for them. 

Lewis Black on AI in Education

Just in case you missed this bit from the Daily Show. As always with Black, language my mother would not appreciate. 

ICYMI: Call Your Senator Edition (6/29)

The Board of Directors here at the Curmudgucation Institute is excited because tonight summer cross country sessions start up, and they would like very much to start running endlessly through rugged terrain again. Cross Country was their first (sort of) organized sport, and it was a hit. 

Meanwhile, however, the Senate GOP rolled their new version of the Giant Bloodsucking Bill Friday after midnight and apparently plan to vote on it tomorrow, because when you're going to pass a bill that screws over everyone (including future national debt-bearing generations) except some rich guys, you don't want to do more in the light of day than you can avoid. 

Contact your senator today. I know it's unlikely to stem this wretched tide (hell, my GOP senator doesn't even live in my state), but if they are going to do this, they need to feel the heat. Put it on your to-do list for today.

Thanks, Supreme Court! It's now my right to prevent my kid from learning about Trump. 

I'm finishing up a piece about the Mahmoud court decision for the Bucks County Beacon, but this piece from Rex Huppke at USA Today nails it pretty well.

School choice, religious school tax carveouts run afoul of Senate’s Byrd rule

Federal vouchers are now out of the Giant Bloodsucking Bill. This piece from Juan Perez, Jr., explains why and how that happened (spoiler alert: not because Congress decided to make better choices).

Updated: Senate Parliamentarian Rejects School Vouchers in Big Beautiful Bill as Violation of Byrd Rule

Jan Resseger can take you through the federal voucher uproar in more detail here.

The Education Reform Zombie Loses (Again)

The school reform wing of the Democratic party has learned absolutely nothing over the years, and Jennifer Berkshire is tracking their latest attempt at a comeback.

Against Optimization

John Warner examines some of the strange assumptions our tech overlords make about an excellent life.

Schools Need to Prepare for Those Masked ICE Agents

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider addresses one of the great challenges of our day-- federal agent attacks on schools.

NC made vouchers open to any family, then many private schools raised tuition

Liz Schlemmer at WUNC reports on the completely unsurprising news that North Carolina schools taking taxpayer-funded vouchers are raising tuition.

Public Comment Opened on Bishop's Education Funding Ambush

Even in Alaska, there are legislators who would like to gut public education. Matthew Beck at Blue Alaskan looks at the latest play to gut funding.

Privatization Parallels for National Parks and Public Schools

Nancy Bailey on how school privatization is much like the attempts to undercut our national park system.

Bugs, Brains, and Book Pirates\

Benjamin Riley with not one, but three stories from the AI skepticism beat. A naturalist group stands up to AI, that anti-AI study you keep reading about is bunk, and a court rules on stealing books for training.

Florida’s “School Choice” Boom? Most Families Still Choose Public Schools

No state has worked harder to kneecap public education than Florida. And yet, as Sue Kingery Woltanski reports, that's still the leading choice of Florida families. 

Voucher Judge Recognizes Reality

Policy expert Stephen Dyer has been all over the recent court victory over Ohio's EdChoice voucher program. He has several excellent posts on the subject, but this one is a fine place to start. Also, this one about voucher lies. 

Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You’re a Moron?

This New York Times piece from Ismail Muhammad is pretty great. "Ads for consumer A.I. are struggling to imagine how the product could improve your day — unless you’re a barely functioning idiot."

ChatGPT Has Already Polluted the Internet So Badly That It's Hobbling Future AI Development

At Futurism, Frank Landymore considers the prospects of an endless AI slop loop

The Black Box Myth: What The Industry Pretends Not To Know About AI

Eryk Salvaggio at Tech Policy Press gets a little wonky about considering what is behind the curtain, and what is just the curtain itself.

This week at Forbes.com I wrapped up the Ohio voucher decision. 

There is a thing that happens with musicians when you've performed the same stuff a million times-- you can just add bits and pieces and stuff while preserving the main thread of the performance. And if you are comfortable with each other, it's extra cool. Louis Prima and Keeley Smith and Sam Butera's band were the epitome of this; in live performance you everything from the record, and so much more. 

Come join my newsletter on substack and get all my various stuffs for free in your email.