ICYMI: Health Care System Edition (11/23)

My 92-year-old mother has spent most of this week in the hospital, and as always when I encounter the health care universe, part of me wonders how the hell people who don't have A) decent insurance, B) relatively easy access to a health care facility, and C) someone who can spend days sitting with them in the room, keeping them company, and translating and advocating-- I mean, my mother has all of those things, and it's still not super-easy. What the hell hope do people without those resources have? What a screwed-up system we have in this country, and yet some people insist on defending it avidly (and some other people would like to change the education system to more closely resemble it). 

So it's been a week here and it's not over, and if the blog has seemed a little quiet, that's why. I love you all, but I love my mom more. But I still have some pieces for you to read. 

School voucher confidential: Yes, the other parents are talking about you

Austin Gelder and Elizabeth L. Cline at Arkansas Times get commentary from a bunch of actual Arkansas parents about the state's voucher program. Nice change of pace, that, and not nearly as snotty as the headline might lead you to believe.

Learning with AI falls short compared to old-fashioned web search

Shiri Melumad has done some actual research indicating that people get more knowledge from a Google search than they do from an AI summary. And isn't that a low bar to fail to clear.

Are States Equipped to Track Students’ Paths From Classroom to Career?

Evie Blad at EdWeek asks many questions about the cradle to career data pipeline-- but not the most important one which is "Should we do this?" Informative yet awful.

RIP Department of Education

Jennifer Berkshire explains how education policies will be handled by the Department of the Boss.

‘Selling off the Department of Education for parts’: The agency’s major overhaul faces fierce backlash

If you want some official reactions to the news, 19th News has them.

I’ve already seen the impact from Charlotte’s Border Patrol surge

Juston Parmenter writes an op-ed for the Charlotte Observer (yes, that Charlotte) about the effects of the border patrol incursion. (Spoiler alert: the effects are not good).

Wall Street Is Paywalling Your Kids’ Sports

From The Lever, by Luke Goldstein. Turns out private equity has found yet another turnip to squeeze. And it includes not allowing you take recordings of your own child playing the sport.

Ohio is passing a law about a school exam question - A strange story behind a testing fiasco

When the Big Standardized Test screws up, does it take the state legislature to fix it? Ohio is working on the question.

Crazy-Pants Makes Crazy Prediction

Thomas Ultican notices that Erik Hanushek is out making wacky predictions again. What he's saying, and why you can safely ignore him.

Uncredible! ASD Debunks AG Cox’s Hillsdale Allegations, Citing Bishop-Era Policy

Continued noise and kerfluffle from the far right over Hillsdale pamphlets handed out in Anchorage schools.

How the Trump Administration Manipulates Power and Undermines Core Principles that Protect Public Schools and Students’ Rights—Part 2

Second part of a Jan Resseger series. It includes a link to Part I if you missed that, which you should,

Open Enrollment/Predator Schools

Andru Volinsky explains the trouble unleashed in New Hampshire by a state supreme court decision that facilitates an ALEC open enrollment scheme.

What is going on in Florida?

A lot, and almost all of it is unprincipled, anti-public education, and ugly (but not all of it). Sue Kingery Woltanski has the rundown, including the part where someone wants all public schools converted to a classical education. Plus the part where the state voucher system made $270 million go missing.

In Florida school wars, are locals finally pushing back?

Well, we can hope. Column by John Hill in Tampa Bay Times.

State Spending on Public School Students Lowest since 1997

That's the year they started voucherizing education. Ohio continues to shaft public school students, and Stephen Dyer has the numbers.

Federal judge rules law requiring display of Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms unconstitutional

This really shouldn't be news, but here we are-- no, you can't inflict your own particular religion on all school students.

Tennessee parents sue to stop voucher program

Opening shots fired. We'll see where the courts land on this one.

AI Suckage Round-up

An awful lot of news related to the awfulness of AI and its unfitness for education. Here we go--

‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI

As I've repeatedly argued, you can't expect students to feel as if they should make an honest human effort when the people in charge of the course won't

AI Companies Are Treating Their Workers Like Human Garbage, Which May Be a Sign of Things to Come for the Rest of Us

Indeed. Joe Wilkins at Futurism

A general understanding of the human

Ben Riley hits several points, including classroom tech.

OpenAI Blocks Toymaker After Its AI Teddy Bear Is Caught Telling Children Terrible Things

Frank Landymore at Futurism says that at least OpenAI knew enough to pull the plug on sex fetishj instructions for children.

The résumé is dying, and AI is holding the smoking gun

See also: college recommendation letters.

The Great AI Bubble

Carole Cadwaller, the woman who used a TED talk to call Sam Altman a data rapist, explains the AI bubble and the economic disaster it will unleash.

The more that people use AI, the more likely they are to overestimate their own abilities

Ther's now some nifty research suggesting that AI will make your Dunning-Kruger problem even worse. "ChatGPT explained it to me, so now I am a freaking expert!!"

I started putting a music video into each of these weekly roundups because these days we can surely use a reminder about some of the nice, even beautiful, things that we humans create beyond policy arguments and political detritus. These are pieces of music I like, some for ages, and some newly discovered. Recommendations are welcomed. This week, it's Zak Abel, a performer I know nothing about, but I do like his song.

As always, it would be delightful if you subscribed. Always free.

ICYMI: Cross Country Edition (10/12)

The Board of Directors has developed a real taste for the long distance run, and we are lucky enough to be in a district with an elementary cross country program. This is their second season, and they remain into it. They like to run and run and run and it turns out that running is best with a bunch of other kids to run with. Yesterday was the big invitational that usually marks the end of the season. There might be one more small meet next week, but that's it. They will be sad to be done. "I'll bet they're tired after all that running," say other parents, with unspoken acknowledgement that a tired child at the end of the day can be a real blessing. But no. No, they are not. Just cranked up and ready for more. There aren't many things cooler than watching a young human do something they love.

The list this week is, for some reason, huge. Dig in.

Neighborhood schools are closing across Arizona. It’s because of vouchers.

Beth Lewis points out just some of the damage being done by Arizona's taxpayer-funded voucher program.

Mississippi towns say ‘no’ to school choice as state-level push continues

Privatizers in Mississippi are getting extra-pushy about taxpayer-funded vouchers, but plenty of regular folks on the ground are saying , "No, thank you." Devna Bose reports for Mississippi Today.

Debunking David Brooks on Education

It's a delight to have Mark Weber ("Jersey Jazzman") blogging again, and this piece that dismembers David Brooks' attempt to pile up some baloney about NCLB and Democrats and test scores--well, it's a delight, too. 

The Inconvenient Success of Mississippi

Jennifer Berkshire looks at why Mississippi's push for vouchers is a little complicated. For one thing, it calls to abandon public schools just as Mississippi is touting a miraculous leap forward in those very schools. 

Wyoming library director fired amid book dispute wins $700,000 settlement

Terri Lesley was fired--and harassed-- because the library system she directed was found to have Naughty Books that made some folks Very Sad. And now the county will have to pay a pretty penny for their mistreatment of her, Mead Gruver at the Associated Press.

Lawsuit: South Carolina book ban regulation is unconstitutional

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, folks are suing the book banners in federal court. Steve Nuzum has the details.

If You Use AI to Grade Student Writing, Stop or Quit Your Job

John Warner with some straight talk. Companies have been pushing computer assessment for student writing for years (I think I've written about it a gazillion times here) but the marketing of AI has goosed robo-grading again. Don't do it. 

Work Hard, Burn Out, Repeat: The Culture Schools Won’t Quit

TC Weber on the teaching culture of trying to Do It All while you Suffer For Your Art. A lot to chew on here.

Making America Hungry Again

Andy Spears wants to know what is healthy-making about policies that starve food banks and students.

‘Hostile takeover:’ Charter operator files to occupy three Sarasota schools

Florida keeps dealing with the fallout of a policy that says public schools must hand over taxpayer-owned property to private charter school companies. Make it make sense. Reported by ABC7.

School Vouchers Cost States Like Florida a Fortune. They Don’t Improve Education, Either.

At USA Today, parent Scott Olson explains why taxpayer-funded school vouchers are a big fat money-sucking mistake. 

As book bans decline, concerns mount over librarian and teacher self-censoring

This is from The Hill, so I'm not sure I buy the "bans are waning" line, but the continued chilly atmosphere and self-censorship in schools definitely deserves discussion. Lexi Lonas Cochran reporting.

The Genius of Our Students

Who knew that gifted and talented programs would become an issue in the NYC mayor's race? Jose Luis Vilson takes that moment to consider some of the issues wrapped up in gifted and talented programs, and the genius of students who never get to show their genius.

Perverse Incentives in Florida’s Middle School Math Acceleration

Sue Kingery Woltanski has found some accountabaloney so stinky that even Patty Levesque can tell something's not right. 

Five Ways the Department of Education Is Upending Public Schools

I've already written about the dynamite ProPublica article by Megan O'Matz and Jennifer Smith Richards. Now check out a follow-up piece they wrote about federal education shenanigans.

Toward the Higher- and Secondary-Ed Alliance

Anna E. Clark considers if K-12 and higher ed could benefit from teaming up to deal with fallout from the Trump regime.

‘It feels like I am being forced to harm a child’: research shows how teachers are suffering moral injury

Okay, so this is from June and Australia. But I've long been interested in the idea of how moral injury--the injuries suffered by being required to do something you know is wrong--affects teachers. So I can't pass up this article about actual, research on the question.

Success Academy rally and their history of violating laws

Leonie Haimson reports on some September shenanigans from Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy. Do it Eva's way, or else.

South Bend forum speakers see charter schools and vouchers as threats to public education

In Indiana, some public discussion about the problems with privatizers in education.

New Book Documents Trump Administration’s Actions to Destroy Diversity in Higher Education

Jan Resseger reviews The Fall of Affirmative Action; Race, The Supreme Court, and the Future of Higher Education. Some scary stuff here.

Silencing Mockingbirds

Jess Piper was a high school English teacher before she became a political activist, and this story from the classroom illustrates again the effects of the Big Standardized Test on how literature is taught in this country.

Observations of Young Children Writing Undermine Goldenberg and The “science of reading” Contention that “Phonics is the On-Ramp to Reading”

Denny Taylor's latest post is long and wonkish, but it has a lot to say about how children may really learn to read and write (and about the "science" thereof).

Petition Panic: The Manufactured Outrage Against Two ASD Teachers

From Alaska, Matthew Beck provides another example of using culture panic to harass educators.

Public Education Shaped by 19th Century Dispute

Thomas Ultican provides some history about public education and battles centered on religious differences.

SecEd Maddow Makes College Presidents an Offer They Can’t Refuse

Rick Hess uses some satirical edge to point out that conservatives may well rue the day that using bribery and extortion to shape college teaching became a policy idea.

1 in 5 high schoolers has had a romantic AI relationship, or knows someone who has

Lee Gaines at NPR reports on some new research and yikes! And if that stat in the headline seems alarming, note also that there appears to be a correlation between school use of AI and students having a social "relationship" with AI.

Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

An interesting take from Chris Stewart (yes, that Chris Stewart) and the study of Stupidology.

Let's Talk About AI Art

The Oatmeal offers a take on AI art, and it's a pretty good one. Not just about the choice to create it, but how it makes us feel as an audience. With pictures!

Robin Williams’ Daughter Tells Fans to ‘Stop Sending Me AI Videos of Dad’: It’s ‘Gross’ and ‘Not What He’d Want’

Yeah, using AI to bug folks with AI fake zombies is now a thing. Don't let it be your thing.

The quantum of intelligence

Ben Riley loves to dive into the deep end. This time, he considers quantum physics, cognition, and AI and then tries to connect some dots. Real thinking stuff (and I mean that in all the ways). 

How the Humanities Can Disrupt AI

I stumbled across this piece from way back in early 2023, roughly a thousand years ago as AI goes, but it's worth a read. Lauren Goodlad and Samuel Baker at Public Books contemplate the crap that would come from the automating of writing.

School offers hikes instead of detention. Teachers are seeing results.

Paywall free, this piece by Kyle Melnick profiles a school in Maine that has tried something different for problem students, and it's not terrible.

Celebrating and Remembering David Berliner

One of the first books I latched onto when I started wading into the world of education reform was 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools by David Berliner and Gene Glass. When I was asked to contribute to a Berliner-edited collection of essays about public ed, it felt like a huge step up for me. NEPC offers some remembrances. Diane Ravitch also noted his passing.

At Forbes.com this week, I wrote up the defeat of New Hampshire's anti-DEI law by a federal judge. May the courtroom losses continue.

For this week's music, let's go back to 1977 and that other re-visioning of The Wizard of Oz. 

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Some Reformsters Just Won't Let It Go

A few weeks ago, Kevin Huffman was in the pages of the Washington Post, bemoaning the lack of education discussion during the Presidential campaign and offering thoughts about What America Needs To Do Next. Nobody needs to read it. Really.

Kevin Huffman is a long-time reformster; in fact Kevin Huffman, as the Tennessee Grand High Commissioner of Education, represents a reformster milestone. Huffman's career path took him to Swarthmore, which led to a Teach For America posting, which led to law school, which led to practicing education law in DC, which led back to TFA, first as general counsel and later as various VP executive titly things. Then, a few years later, Governor Bill Haslam tapped him for Tennessee Educational Poobahdom. Which made him the first TFA temp to get to run an entire state's education system. 

Once in charge, he made his reformy mark. (I will mention, because someone always brings it up, that he was for a brief while married to Michelle Rhee). He chimed in with Arne Duncan to claim that low-achieving students, including those with learning disabilities, just needed to be tested harder. And as a super buddy of charter schools, he took $3.4 million dollars away from Nashville city schools because their board didn't approve the charter that he had personally shepherded through the process.

He became one of Jeb Bush's Chiefs for Change. Huffman was a loyal Common Core warrior and was right at the front of the line to hand the feds the Race to the Top keys to Tennessee education in exchange for a NCLB waiver. Huffman never met a reformster idea he didn't like (evaluation to root out bad teachers, performance based pay, charters)

Huffman also recruited Chris Barbic from Houston to come run the Achievement School District. The ASD was an attempt to see if New Orleans style public-to-private education conversion could be implemented without the fortuitous advent of a hurricane. Could human beings deliver that kind of destruction without the assistance of nature and create a network of business investment opportunities private charter schools?

The ASD was Huffman's audacious attempt to bundle the bottom 5% of schools and take them over as a state-run "district." The 2012 edition of the now-defunct ASD website proclaimed:

The Achievement School District was created to catapult the bottom 5% of schools in Tennessee straight to the top 25% in the state. In doing so, we dramatically expand our students’ life and career options, engage parents and community members in new and exciting ways, and ensure a bright future for the state of Tennessee.

 Three years later, Barbic gave up, saying, 

Let’s just be real: achieving results in neighborhood schools is harder than in a choice environment. I have seen this firsthand at YES Prep and now as the superintendent of the ASD. As a charter school founder, I did my fair share of chest pounding over great results. I’ve learned that getting these same results in a zoned neighborhood school environment is much harder.

Barbic was replaced by a Broadie, who also failed to do anything other than move some goal posts (no more of that "top 25%" stuff). Huffman couldn't close the deal on selling the model to other states. And the ASD just kept failing. 

Failing so consistently that a little more than a week after Huffman's WaPo op-ed, Chalkbeat reported that research by Brown's Annenberg Institute found that the ASD "generally worsened high school test scores." It also didn't help on ACT scores and "data related to attendance, chronic absenteeism, and disciplinary actions wasn’t encouraging, either." Researchers found neither short-term nor long-term gains for students, and Tennessee legislators seem to finally be getting the idea that the ASD is junk.

But the guy who created it is still failing upward, having passed through the reform-pushing City Fund and now working as CEO of Accelerate, one more educational consulting fix-it shop operated by people with lots in the reformy funding universe (the board includes John White and Janice Jackson). They're particularly keyed in to tutoring and individualized instruction, both computerized.

So what advice does the chief with no actual edu-wins to his name have to offer? Well, he thinks that George W. Bush was swell, and remember, reading and math scores wet up in the early days of No Child Left Behind. Folks like Monty Neill of Fairtest have since pointed out that these gains were only on the state Big Standardized Test. I was in the classroom at the time, and I can tell you exactly why test scores went up initially-- because once the tests were rolled out we could learn how to teach to the test, and after a few years we had collected all the test prep gains we were going to get. 

Huffman likes the "gains" in race to the Top testing which, again, reflect teachers learning how to game the new PARCC and SBA tests. 

But, Huffman complains, by the end of the Obama administration, the feds were gibing in to demands for more local control and pre-COVID test scores were already dipping, then "following the academic wreckage covid-19 left behind, heavy deferral to the states on spending and policy has left us with massive learning gaps and no national plan for closing them."

It takes a person whose educational "experience" is almost entirely outside the classroom to believe that the Big Standardized Test is a useful measure of learning that should be the centerpiece of education policy rather than understanding that BS Testing is the most toxic force to be unleashed on education in the last couple of decades.

Huffman argues we need "strong national leadership around education policy," which makes sense only if such leadership is guided by an actual understanding of teaching and learning and schooling, but history suggests that isn't happening any time ever. But, he asserts, everyone wants "the best basic education for their children." I don't know what to do with that "basic" in there. 

How do we get it?

For starters, the next president should issue a national call for all states and all groups of students to surpass pre-pandemic learning levels in reading and math by 2030 — and direct the Education Department to report on each state’s progress.

God, one of my least favorite forms of management-- management by insistence. This is like sales managers who issue increased sales targets with helpful directives like "sell more." But worse, this is demanding that schools focus more intently on the wrong damn target-- test scores.

Huffman also wants the feds to replace ESSA (too weak) with "a return to nationwide education goals" along with accountability measures. Ans also, grants for states that "pursue ambitious education reform" as, one assumes, defined by the feds.

In other words, Huffman would like to rewind to 2002 and start NCLB/CCSS/RTTT all over again, and I guess we can say that keeping on with something that hasn't worked yet is on brand for Huffman. But man-- it all didn't work the first time, and not just "didn't work" but "did more harm than good."

But he has some specifics that he wants the feds to enforce this time. One is phonics-based learning and I don't have time to get into the reading wars other than to say that any time someone says "if we just use X, every student will learn Y" they are wrong.

He also wants the feds to boost high-dosage tutoring, which coincidentally is one of the foci of his present gig. High-dosage tutoring is hard and expensive to scale up, with the research support very narrow and specific. He also wants more CTE (fine).

Bottom line, Huffman wants presidents not to abdicate their "responsibility to push school districts toward success," a sentiment in line with the reformster notion that everything wrong with education is the fault of lazy educators who have to be coerced into doing their jobs (and certainly not treated like partners in the education world). 

The federal standards and BS Testocrats had their shot, and they failed hard. In many ways, their failures are still haunting the public school system. Huffman is a poster child for the Teach For America crowd who visited a classroom for a couple of years and parleyed that into "education expert" on their resume, going on to promote and support an array of ill-advised policies flavored with a barely-concealed disdain for the people who have actually made education and teaching a career. They should not get a do-over. They cannot be taken seriously, even if they manage to be platformed by major media outlets. 

ICYMI: Father's Day Edition (6/20)

My father is in his mid-80s, not quite as spry as he once was, but still the smartest human I know. I have a lot more to say, but I just erased a humongous paragraph because I realized it just needs to be a separate post. So let's get on to the reading for this week.

I will warn you up front that there's a lot of critical race theory stuff on the list this week, and you might want to skim and just pick out one or two to read, because lordy this controversy is depressing. There's other stuff here, too. I promise.

How a conservative activist invented the conflict over critical race theory

This New Yorker piece is a great explainer of how Christofer Rufo built an erupting right-wing mountain out of this long-simmering academic theory.

Researcher uncovers CRT astroturfing campaign

At Vice, a reporter digs up a connection between an anti-CRT group in NYC and notorious dirty tricks guy Rick Berman (if you need a refresher about this guy, here's one)

Alabama lawmaker wants to ban critical race theory, so I asked him what it is

This is turning out to be a whole sub-genre of CRT coverage, in which dipstick legislators are asked to explain what exactly they're opposed to. Low hanging fruit, but instructive. And in this piece, Kyle Whitmire goes the extra mile by moving on from asking a middle aged white man to asking a middle aged Black man.

We asked Republicans to explain Critical Race Theory--they couldn't.

Alex Thomas at the Daily Dot takes the same story idea and takes it to scale by asking a whole bunch of Senators.

What's Joe Biden's Plan for Education  

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider in the Nation looks at the question of just what bad ideas Biden is carrying over from his previous time in DC.

The real college admissions scandal

James Murphy in Slate with a look at what really gives folks a leg up get into a fancy college. Not affirmative action, not even legacies--it's private schools. I found some of these numbers surprising.

Critical race theory battles invade school boards--with help from conservative groups

Three reporters for NBC discover that conservatives are parachuting in to disrupt school boards again--this time with CRT as the hook.

Teachers on edge over critical race theory debate

Perhaps because laws keep getting passed and penalties threatened. Aris Foley at The Hill.

A fading coal country bets on schools, but there's one big hitch

I'm always leery of big city journalists coming to rural stories, but this New York Times story feels true to me. In West Virginia, they're trying to boost local fortunes with better schooling--but what do young people do when they've got a good education, but no local prospects?

The end of the line, 2020-21

It's the end of the school year, and Nancy Flanagan is not feeling happy about the current state of education.

ASD Holes

Gary Rubinstein went to an online seminar about the great ideas about school takeovers in Tennessee. He came equipped with facts about the massive failures of that policy in the state, and though he had resolved to hold his tongue, well... 

Texas Republicans take aim at history this Juneteenth. It could backfire.

In an NBC op-ed, Brian Franklin looks at the problem of states that have forbidden teachers to teach the full truth of a new federal holiday, focusing on Texas.

New School Curriculum Just 6 Straight Hours of Staring Slackjawed at the American Flag

The Onion is on the job again. 

ICYMI: Worse Week Than I Thought Edition (1/31)

You know, I thought last week was pretty okay until I looked at the pieces I had collected. So maybe you don't want to read every single item on the list this week. But do stick around for the palate cleanser at the end.

Jeff Bezos wants to go to the moon. Then, public education.

From Dominik Dresel at EdSurge, a piece that will not warm your heart or lift your spirits. 

2nd Grader expelled for telling another girl she had a crush on her

While we're not lifting your spirits--from CNN. Just in case you need one more example of how that nice Christian private school doesn't have to take--or keep--any kid they don't want to.

Unions just got a rare bit of good news.

If you thought the Janus case, which illegalized fair share payments and allowed teachers to be free riders on their unions work--well, if you thought that was the end of it, you underestimated how much some people hate unions. The next wave of suits is asking the court to make unions pay back all the fair share money they ever collected. SCOTUS announced this week that it will not hear at least the first block of such cases. Fully explained at Vox.

LA Virtual School's Whopper Course Sizes, with a Side of Edgenuity

Let's start a quick tour of some states by starting down south with the indispensable Mercedes Schneider, who reports on how virtual school is working out in Louisiana.

Norfolk remains deeply segregated

The Virginian-Pilot begins its long look at the city that was the site of the first federally funded public housing, the first to be released from federally mandated bussing. They have some issues, and this series, produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program, looks to be a long haul.

ASD Light

Against all sense, somebody in Tennessee thinks that maybe a do-over on the failed Achievement School District concept might work. Andy Spears has the story at Tennessee Ed Report.

All the World's A Stage

TC Weber has a variety of news items from TN, including an item that suggests TNTP is getting ready to teach everyone literacy stuff.

Ohio: Funding Doesn't Matter

The state auditor has decided that funding schools doesn't really do anything. Jan Resseger begs to differ, and brings some receipts.

Will North Carolina continue to whitewash history for its students?

North Carolina was on a path toward acknowledging some systemic problems. Then they elected a new state superintendent.

Will SB48 make educating your child more difficult than finding a covid vaccine?

Florida is set to take one more giant bite out of its public education system. I wrote about this bill, but Accountabaloney is one the scene and has a clear picture of what's going on. And everyone needs to pay attention, because Florida is using the same playbook that other states crib from.

The school choice movement reckons with its conservative ties

The splintering of choice's right and left wings has been a story for a while, but when the Philly PBS station notices, you know something's going on. Avl Wolfman-Arent reports for WHYY.

Teacher Comments on Being Tech Skeptics

Larry Cuban has collected some real comments from real teachers about the value of ed tech.

Is there really a science of reading?

At the Answer Sheet, David Reinking, Victoria J. Risko, and George G. Hruby stop by to explain in calm, measured tones why the whole "science of reading" thing is not the cure-all it's promoted to be.

More states seek federal waivers

Also the Answer Sheet, Valerie Strauss reports that more and more states are asking for what is so obviously the right thing to do-- scrap the 2021 Big Standardized Test.

Marketplace mentality toward schools hurts society

The Baptist Standard, of all places, has an interview with Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire about Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door (do you have your copy yet? get it today!) and how the market approach to education is bad for everyone.

Trump conspiracists in the classroom

Buzzfeed, of all places, takes a look at the problem of teachers who have fallen down the Trump/Qanon hole. Politics in the classroom are one thing; lies and debunked conspiracies are another order of trouble.

Meet the Vermont Teacher behind Bernie's Mittens

Just in case you haven't met her already. I've got to leave you with something encouraging.

ICYMI: Saturday Snow Day (1/18)

A Saturday Snow Day is when the weather is so awful that adults are absolved of any obligation to go anywhere and get anything done. We were having one right now in NW PA, with Interstates shut down and folks huddled up home. It's not a bad thing. If you need something to read while you huddle, I've got you covered.

Why Aesha Ash Is Wandering Around Inner City Rochester In A Tutu

Let's start the week with a really cool story about a Black ballerina creating her own project to make a difference.

The Rhetorical Secretary

Okay, so much for good feelings. Here's Mark Hlavacik in The Kappan breaking down Betsy DeVos for her part in the history of the Ed Secretary as leader of a national conversation about education. This is actually from last November, but I missed it till now. It's thoughtful and worth a look. Here's a snippet, considering some of DeVos's attacks on her opponents:

Such rhetoric is not an attempt to persuade those who disagree with her. It is not even an invitation for further conversation or meaningful debate. Instead, the insults that pepper her addresses serve to exclude any part of her audience that disagrees with her and — given how many Americans disagree with her, by her own account — functionally makes the enactment of rhetorical leadership on a national scale impossible.

Two States. Eight Textbooks.

Dana Goldstein at the New York Times does some detailed comparison of history texts from Texas and California. The differences may not be surprising, but they're still concerning.

Texas School District Falls For Email Phishng Scam, Loses $2.3 Million  

Reminder-- your security is only as good as the people you let get behind the keyboard. A cautionary tale.

Minneapolis Public School Stands To Lose 1/3 of Families with Redesign  

Sarah Lahm continues to provide a sharp and insightful look at what some brands of ed reform look like on the ground in Minneapolis. Not pretty.

Are You Ready to Make 2020 the Year of Early Childhood Education  

The folks at Defending the Early Years have lots of important stuff planed for this year. Here's the rundown so you can mark your calendar now.

The Misleading Rhetoric of School Choice

Jersey Jazzman digs down and looks at how the word "choice" is deployed in ways that are misleading. This is a really good piece.

The Tennessee ASD: Booted or Re-Booted?

Gary Rubinstein has been following the ill-fated Tennessee Achievement School District since Day One (the one that was use magical state takeovers and charter management to move the bottom 5% of schools to the tippy top), and now that they appear to be throwing in the towel, he takes a look back. He also, unfortunately, makes a convincing case for why folks can't heave a sigh of relief just yet.

Equitable Education Funding Isn't Happening Yet

Andre Perry at Hechinger talks about what we don't like to talk about-- that wealthy and nmiddle-class folks just don't want to pay to educate the poor.

About That Montana Choice Program

Espinoza v Montana is coming up, poised to take down the wall between church and state when it comes to school funding. But Rebecca Klein at Huffington Post took a look at the schools in that tiny choice program and found lots of explicit discrimination against LGBTQ students.

How Higher Salaries for Teachers Became a GOP Governor Thing 

Erin Einhorn at NBC news takes a look at the new sort of trend. Not sure I agree with all of this piece, but it's still an interesting overview.

Charter Schools Have No Valid Claim To Public Property

From Shawgi Tell, at Dissident Voice, an argument against handing public property like school buildings over to private companies.

Five Reasons School Takeovers Fail

At the May 22 meeting of the Florida State Board of Education meeting, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and some board members expressed frustration with the state of Duval County Schools. "At what point do you say, ‘Maybe we should put them in receivership. Maybe we should have legislation that allows us to go over there and take over,’ ” he said.

Meanwhile, Ohio is trying to come to grips with a spectacularly failing takeover policy, but progress in the legislature has hit a snag. The House passed a bill that would do away with Ohio's current takeover structure and create a new way for districts to respond to problems-- they've even incorporated the language into the budget. But the Ohio Senate has its own ideas about replacing the school state takeover bill with--another school state takeover bill, featuring a special state "transformation" board.

Since policy writers and thinky tanks first started pushing the idea of identifying "failing" schools, the search has been on for a way to fix those schools. A popular choice has been the school takeover model, where the state strips the local school district of authority and then waves some sort of magic wand to make things better.

The Obama administration used School Improvement Grants as a tool, offering federal funds to schools that were "failing," but those funds came with very strict rules about how they could be used. This is a good example of the Takeover By Puppetry model, in which the local officials are left in place, but they are only allowed to make certain government-approved moves or must only implement consultant-approved steps. The SIG program spent in the neighborhood of $7 billion. USED's own report found that it "had no significant impacts on math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment."

The more direct takeover approach has also been tried. Tennessee formed the Achievement School District; in this model, the state takes control of "failing schools" and lumps them into a state-run district. The initial promise was that schools from the bottom 5% would be catapulted into the top 25%. After a few years, they were not even close to achieving their, so they rewrote the goal. The head of the ASD moved on to another job. Versions of the ASD have been tried in several states and in cities (e.g. Philadelphia) and in almost all cases, they've been rolled back or shut down because they cost a lot of money and achieve few worthwhile results.

At this point, school takeover is one of those ed reform techniques that has been tested enough times that there's no longer any mystery about whether or not it works. Mostly it doesn't. Here are the most common reasons that takeovers don't turn a problem school into an oasis of success.

1) The Wrong Measure of Failure

How are we going to decide which schools are in need of taking over? The most common answer is by standardized test scores--which is a lousy answer. This bad definition is important because it biases the process in favor of bad solutions. A school may have a hundred problems, but if all we're focused on is the test scores, too may real problems will be unaddressed. Worse, many important elements of children's education will be swept aside to make room for more test prep--the exact opposite of what students in struggling schools need. This is like calling AAA because you're stranded beside the road with three flat tires, a busted radiator, an empty gas tank, and failing brakes--and AAA sends someone to wax the car.

2) The Wrong Diagnosis

Takeover programs focus on school governance. The thesis of a takeover is that the school board, the administration, and probably the teachers, are the root of all the problems at the school. If we just take them out of the way and replace them with shinier people, then everything will just fall into place. Somehow, all these people who work in the district either don't know how to raise test scores, or they just don't care. Resources for the district, issues in the community, systemic lack of support for the school, poverty--none of that is on the table. The belief is that when the old bureaucracy (including unions) is swept away and replaced, preferably by a visionary CEO type who will whip the troops into shape, then everything will run so much better. Often the unspoken premise is, "If we could just run these schools like charter schools..." Here's what Chris Barbic, who was supposed to be the visionary CEO of the Tennessee ASD, said as he was leaving the job:

Let’s just be real: achieving results in neighborhood schools is harder than in a choice environment.  I have seen this firsthand at YES Prep and now as the superintendent of the ASD.  As a charter school founder, I did my fair share of chest pounding over great results. I’ve learned that getting these same results in a zoned neighborhood school environment is much harder.

3) The Wrong Pool of Expertise

Another premise of state takeovers is that somebody in the state capital knows more about how to educate the students in that district than the people who live in that district, that some career politician knows more about running a school than a career educator. The level of arrogance here is Grand Canyon caliber; the takeover model almost never includes a step in which the takeover expert sits down with local folks and says, "You guys know the community, the students, the history here, so I need to listen to you to understand where we are." On occasion he goes through those motions, much like the corporate boss who holds meetings about a decision he's already made because he heard somewhere that's how you get "buy in."

Lorain, Ohio, is a too-typical example. CEO David Hardy is a Teach for America alumnus with a grand total of two years spent in a classroom. Since then he's worked in a variety of education related jobs, but never stayed in one job longer than three years. To even imagine that takeovers have a hope of succeeding, one must imagine takeover bosses who are education experts, who know more than anyone already in the district could possibly know. Who are these education management superstars, and where have they been hiding all these years if not in perfectly good jobs that they have no reason to leave? Too often, takeovers elevate educational amateurs to power they don't know how to use. The newly proposed Senate model sets up a $20 million gravy train for state-approved outside consultants; is there any reason at all to assume these consultants have the necessary expertise?

As for charters, if they did in fact know the secret sauce for school achievement, we'd all have heard about it by now (and some charter operators would be getting rich packaging it). But charters don't know anything that public education folks don't; the secret sauce is more time, more money, and fewer students who don't fit the school's mold.

4) The Wrong Motivation

Too often, school takeover is about turning a public school over to a private charter operator. Former House Speaker Corcoran (whose wife works in the charter sector) reportedly seems miffed that the Duval County Superintendent is unwilling to bring in consultants and/or charters to fix up her schools. The proposed Ohio Senate bill, which switches the state from hard takeovers to puppet-style takeovers, was crafted by a committee that includes representatives of the business sector, a think tank that does charter authorizing business in Ohio, and some other ed reform advocates.

Some systems are stacked in favor of keeping the takeover pipeline flowing. Tennessee used a popular definition of "worst schools" which is "those who score in the bottom 5%." This guarantees a perpetual source of takeover schools, because no matter how your state is doing, someone is always in the bottom 5%. School takeovers can be about a sincere desire to intervene in a troubled district, but they can also be about exploiting a manufactured crisis that cracks open an attractive market for those who want to make money from privatization.

5) The Wrong Timetable

Even if a takeover has settled on the narrow, meager goal of simply raising test scores, takeovers often feature a wildly unrealistic timetable. Changing a school's entire culture, while the slow march of years slowly feeds your students through the system, is a long process. It takes four years to swap out the complete student body of a high school. Takeovers might transform a system in five or ten years. Takeover proposals often call for far less; the Ohio proposal wants it done in two or else the school can be re-taken over by a different model.

The idea that someone can parachute into a district and suddenly reverse years of problems (including problems they ignore) quickly and easily is either naivete or a cynical mask for a hostile takeover. It puts the state in the odd position of saying, "We have known all along how to fix a school district--we've just been keeping it to ourselves while we watch you," when in fact they don't really have a clue. Struggling schools can be turned around, but this is not the way.

Originally posted at Forbes

ICYMI: Time For Summer Edition (6/9)

Summer break has arrived in my neck of the woods, which means the Board of Directors will no longer have me outnumbered!. In the meantime, here's some reading from the week. Remember-- sharing is how you amplify the voices that you think need to be heard. Bloggers and journalists can write all day, but we all depend on readers to help put us in front of our audience.

Robots Are Not Coming For Your Job-- Management Is  

Great piece not directly about education, but a reminder that automation is not some sort of mysterious natural process.

Ohio Needs To Abandoned Failed High Stakes Tests   

The League of Women Voters comes down hard against high stakes testing as a measure of educational quality. Always nice to see people outside the classroom get it.

Schools Should Serve Humans, Not "The Economy"\

Lois Weiner makes her pitch for Bernie Sanders to reject the language of business when discussing schools. Never mind Bernie-- can we get everyone to do this?

Is Charlie Butt the New Eli Broad?

Not that we need one for anything, but her comes another deep-pocketed educational amateur with big ideas.

Millions of Kids Take Standardized Tests Just To Help The Testing Companies  

Oh, the business of field testing, wasting everybody's time.

Tennessee Achievement School District At a Crossroads  

"Crossroads" is generous, but here's the OG ASD still not getting its job done.

Let's Hear It For The Average Child  

From the New York Times.

An Anti-Racist Reading List  

Powerful and handy resources from Ibram X. Kendi.

7 Reasons We're Seeing More Challenging Behavior in Early Childhood Settings  

Rae Pica looks at some of those things that we continue to get wrong when it comes to the littles.

ICYMI: Birthday Eve Edition (5/19)

Might even eat some cake today just to warm up. You know the drill, folks. Read and share. Read and share. Only you can help amplify voices in the web-o-sphere.

A Letter To Journalists About Dark Money

A great little primer here from Massachusetts, where dark money tried to make charter schools happen.

Curriculum for Profit and Propaganda  

Alan Singer takes a look at the newfound interest in curriculum among the reformnoscenti.

Open and Accessible?

A Chalkbeat reporter tries to attend ten charter school  meetings in a month. It doesn't go well.

Gates Funded Commission To Put Value on College Education

Just in case you were worried that Bill Gates might be done messing with education.

I was a white teacher who couldn't talk about race.    

Sarah Fine with an open and honest look at her own journey. If you only read one piece this week...

About charter schools-- and Betsy DeVos

Larry Campbell will not make you guess what he really feels.

At Excel Academy, a confrontation that never should have happened

An ugly encounter between a racist and students. For your "I can't believe this kind of crap still happens" file.

Better To Be Born Rich 

A Georgetown study tracked kindergartners from 1989. Turns out that test scores don't change your future, but the economics of your family pretty well set it.

What Do Teachers Really Want From Professional Development? Respect.

Yes, somebody gets it.

Dear STAR Test, We Need To Talk, Again  

Another crappy standardized test. This time it's reading.

Jeanne Allen  

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider digs deep for the story of the crankiest reformster of them all.

The New But Not Necessarily Improved ASD

Tennessee's Achievement School District was a model for how the state could take over a bunch of schools and work miracles. Only it couldn't. But the ASD is still thrashing away down there.

Avenue to the Stars  

Have Your Heard looks at the intersection of school and the free market

Jeb Bush's A+ Disaster

A look at how Florida is still paying the price for Jeb! Bush and his edureformerific ideas.

Are School Playgrounds Still Empty?   

Nancy Bailey looks at the issue of littles with no chance to run and play.

ICYMI: Year in Review Edition (12/31)

Got nothing to do tonight? Ring in the new year with the best of the things you might have missed this year (or just forgotten about). I have slanted this collection toward pieces outside the blogosphere, because you should be reading and sharing my blogroll. Here's a year's worth of in case you missed them...


Good Business Models for Education
We don't talk enough about the fact that reformsters don't just want to schools to be run with business practices, but with bad disproven business practices. Here's Sam Abrams in the LA Times suggesting some better business practices to use.

The Red Queen
Jennifer Berkshire (Edushyster) spent nine days in Michigan interviewing over forty different people. She came back not only with the definitive DeVos nickname, but how the Education Secretary nominee looks to the people who have lived under her shadow.

How the Pioneers of the MOOC Got It Wrong
about how the launchers of MOOCery screwed up some pretty basic fundamentals


A Visit to the For-Profit Edu-Mall
A comic strip series from Mr. Fitz. Great explainer to share with people who aren't up for reading whole paragraphs.

Have We Lost Sight of the Promise of Public Schools
At the New York Times, Nikole Hannah-Jones looks at the difficulties we've always had fulfilling the promise of public education (hint: they're related to our problems acepting all citiizens as equal parts of the public).


Betsy DeVos' Holy War

So this is where we are now-- Rolling Stone decides to go ahead and cover the Secretary of Education. Much of this will be familiar to those of us who have been studying up on DeVos, but Janet Reitman's piece connects all the dots and lays out the bigger, scarier picture.


Dismantling Public Education: Turning Ideology into Gold

Alex Molnar at the Institute for New Economics takes a look at the big picture in the school privatization movement.


Rest in Peace, EVAAS Developer William Sanders
At VAMboozled, an obituary for and recap of the developer of EVAAS, one of the widely used VAM models. If you want the incredible story of where this thing came from, here it is (with links, for advanced students). 

The War on Education as Public Good
Wendy Lecker with another great set of insights on the assault on Public Education

What Betsy DeVos Calls Education Transformation Is Actually Public Theft

Jeff Bryant walks us through what DeVos is actually telling us, and what's she's telling us is that she's going to turn education over to privateers.

The Histories of Personalization

Audrey Watters takes a long, detailed look at the history of the school personalization movement and the many ways in which it is not what it's cracked up to be.

Betsy DeVos Doesn't Get It

Jan Ressenger looks at how DeVos's Libertarian beliefs do not serve the public good.


White People Keep Finding New Ways To Segregate Schools

From Mother Jones, a piece that looks at ed reform through a different lens, and shows how creative white folks have been about getting their children away from black and brown students.

The Charter School Free Riding Problem

Jersey Jazzman takes a look at a little-noted phenomenon: how public schools are doing the work of recruiting teachers for charter schools.


Field Guide To Jobs That Don't Exist Yet

That annoying stat about how 65% of the jobs our students will have do not exist yet-- it turns out to be pretty much made up. Here is a beautifully researched explanation of where that little slice of baloney came from.

Internalizing the Myth of Meritocracy
Another hard-hitting Anderson piece in the Atlantic, looking at how the myth of meritocracy becomes damaging to children of color. Because if I believe that the system is fair and rewards excellence, and I'm not being rewarded, I can only conclude one thing...

Three Myths About Reading Levels

Psychology Today takes a shot at those damned reading levels.


A Black Face in a White Space
A graduate talks about his four years as a black student at University of Pennsylvania. Plenty to think about here. 

Reality Check: Trends in School Finance
Bruce Baker looks at that old reformy refrain "We've spent double the money and test results have stayed flat." Is that actually true. (Spoiler alert: no). With charts and explanations that civilians can understand.

Standardized Tests Are So Bad I Can't Answer These Questions About MY Own Poems
here's a reminder about how absurd these tests are. A poet discovers her own poems used on a standardized test-- and that she can't correctly answer the test questions. A classic.

The History and Future of Learning Objects and Intelligent Machines
Nobody is better than Audrey Watters at drawing the lines between the cold, hard specifics of ed tech and the bigger ideas and issues behind them. If you only read one item on the list, make it this one.

Pence: Black Is White
Sheila Kennedy on the Pencian habit of setting truth and reality aside in the pursuit of privatization.

Who Can Say What 20 Years of PA Charter Schools Have Taught Us?

Philly paper takes a look a twenty years of charter not-so-success in Pennsylvania.

Dark Money in Mass
Andrea Gabor with a good summing up of the dark money mess in Mass, where various bad actors tried to secretly support raising the charter cap.

Teachers Are Grown-ups, Not Children
From across the Atlantic, this piece about someone who changed careers and was astonished to discover that teachers are not treated like grown-up professionals. 

Why Privatization Is a Disaster for any Democratic Society
Salon looks at privatization in education and other areas

Teaching: If You Aren't Dead Yet, You Aren't Doing It Well Enough
Read this piece from Othamr's Trombone about teaching as an act of self-sacrifice and martyrdom

The Great Tennessee Achievement School District Experiment Finally Comes to an End
Gary Rubinstein revisits the Tennessee ASD, the ASD that launched a bunch of other ASDs, now that it has reached its sell-by date, to ask how it did. (Spoiler alert- not so well)

Florida School Voucher Investigation
How bad is voucher fraud and corruption in Florida? The Orlando Sentinel gives us a three part series that answers the question (and it's not pretty)

We Libertarians Really Were Wrong about School Vouchers

Well, here's a perspective that's different in many ways

What We Talk About When We Talk About the Corporate Education Agenda
A not-very-uplifting episode of the Have You Heard podcast, interviewing Gordon Lafer, author of the One Percent Solution.  Important but grim.

How Do You Keep an Iceberg Fresh?
From I Love You But You're Going To Hell, possibly the most perfectly-named blog out there. Addressing the problem of taking education ideas to scale, with a perfect analogy.

How Ed Reform Ate the Democratic Party
Jennifer Berkshire looks at the sad history of how the Democratic Party decided to stop being the party of public education and instead transformed itself into GOP-lite.

Software Is a Long Con
"Computer systems are poorly built, badly maintained, and often locked in a maze of vendor contracts and outdated spaghetti code that amounts to a death spiral. This is true of nothing else we buy."

Not specifically about education, but given the heavy attempt to turn education into a software product, boy is this about education.


Top Ed Tech Trends Fake News
A long read of the week, but well worth it, putting fake news in the context of our country as a whole and ed tech baloney in particular. From Audrey Watters.

She Breaks Rules While Expecting Students To Follow Them
Lisa Miller reviews the Moskowitz memoir and identifies some of Eva's central problems, like how she is proud of being a rebel, and demands that all of her students never rebel at all. It gets better.

Voucher Schools Can Teach Whatever They Want
HuffPost did some heavy-duty research into what is actually taught at the mostly-religious schools that benefit from vouchers in this country. You may have expected the emphasis on anti-evolution and anti-science, but there's a also a healthy dose of political conservatism (and get them women back in the kitchen). How Betsy DeVos wants your tax dollars to work.

The Other Tech Bubble

I prefer the other title this piece appears under-- "Silicon Valley Techies Still Think They're the Good Guys. They're Not." This Wired piece doesn't address education directly, but its portrayal of Silicon Valley guys as entitled, arrogant jerks in a toxic culture will be recognizable to everyone who deals with edtech wizards.