Is there any holiday more special that Cheap Chocolate Day, celebrated on February 15 and all days thereafter until stock is sold out? Right up there with Half Price Candy Day on November 1. Celebrate it with someone you love.
I had no intention of this weekly digest being a chronicle of medical adventures, but this week I managed to twist my slightly cranky knee into an ER visit, from which I returned with some lovely parting gifts of a brace, crutches, and some drugs (well, not gifts exactly). So it has been a slow week for my work here, and I promise even more typos than usual.
As I always do when I encounter the medical system, I try to imagine how awful it must be to try to navigate it without decent insurance or a good support network, and the sheer hardworking decency of the people on the ground. I have met grumpy doctors and disconnected bureaucrats in my years, but never once a bad nurse. It's hard to understand how such a great nation can be so bad at providing health care, except that it's not, especially at this moment when our tendency to wield self-sufficiency as its ugly flip side, the side that says I shouldn't have to worry about taking care of anyone else.
At any rate, here's the reading list for the week.
I have not always agreed with Chad Aldeman, but he has the wonky credentials to really break down what smells funny about the DOGE attack on the research wing of the Department of Education.
In Pennsylvania, we need more cyber charters like we need another famous groundhog, and once again, a lawmaker is trying to do something about it. Bethany Rodgers has the story for GoErie.
Students First has done a lousy job of managing voucher money in two states already, so clearly it should expand operations. Linda Jacobson has the story in The74.
Jan Resseger continues to follow political shenanigans in Ohio, where privateers insist that there just isn't money for public schools, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty for vouchers. Kind of like when your kids say they're too full to finish supper, but have plenty of room for ice cream.
Nobody is providing better ongoing coverage of a district's reaction to a school shooting than TC Weber, and while his district may not be yours, you will recognize much of what goes on (right down to the adults really wishing that the student board representatives would shut up and sit down).
Privateers so badly want computer tutoring to be a thing because it would be so cheap and let them shut schools for the poors and put a lot of teachers out of work. Thomas Ultican describes yet another attempt to try to make it all happen.
Linda McMahon has her confirmation hearing this week, and let's be honest-- the Congress that okayed Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not going to blink twice at McMahon, who at least does a passable imitation of a real grownup. For that matter, she's more qualified than Betsy DeVos was (she's had actual jobs, including jobs leading other people) and she's less inclined to say the kind of stunningly dumb things that made DeVos a late night tv punchline.
She opens with thank you's to friends and families and for Trump's faith in her to lead a department that "was a special focus of his campaign." Yes, "focus" is probably a nicer word than "target." I keep thinking it would be something to one day see one of these nominees bring the same rhetoric they use outside the hearing room into the hearing room. But no, this has to be an all-baloney zone (a balozone).
Now she will recap Trump's bold, baloney-filled promises. "He p[ledged to make American education the best in the world," like he has the faintest idea how to do that or what it would look like and has any reason to say that other than one more way to claim that American education is failing. He's going to "return education to the states where it belongs," as if it were not already there, and "free American students from the education bureaucracy through school choice" much like Kennedy wants to free Americans from disease prevention and the administration wants to free white guys from requirements to show merit. McMahon's preferred privatization is not about freeing students; it's about freeing Americans (particularly wealthy ones) from being responsible for educating Those Peoples' Children. Just remove the promise of a decent education for all American children, and call it freedom.
More butt-kissing, citing November as proof that Americans "overwhelmingly support the President's vision." November was no such thing. Trump's margin was small, and in the few states that got the chance to vote on vouchers (something voucher supporters try to avoid at all costs), the same people who supported Trump rejected his educational vision. But she is ready to enact his vision.
"Education is THE issue that determines our national success" and therefor we should spend as little on it as possible. No, just kidding. It "prepares American workers to win the future," which is a jam-packed phrase. The future is something one wins? Education is only for producing workers?
Now she gets to her qualifications. Sort of. "I've been passionate about education since my earliest college days when I studied to earn a teaching certificate." That would be the mid-to-late sixties. Her passion continued through her business career (she reportedly married Vince McMahon in college and dumped her own career hopes to help him). She will even bring up her brief time on the Connecticut State Board of Education. Also, she was a university trustee and her chairwomanship of the American First Policy Institute, and she just kept being passionate about education through all of that. No mention of how she felt about that passion not being invoplved in the first Trump administration.
She's a "mother and a grandmother" and she also "joined millions of American parents who want better schools for our kids and grandkids." Joined them in what? Being passionate, I guess.
Here's my thing about people who are passionate about education-- if it's a thing you're passionate about, it's really easy to become directly involved. Somewhere near you is a public school, and I feel confident that not one of them has a motto like "That's okay, thanks. We don't need anything right now." Passion that does not convert into actual action is empty posturing. If a suitor told you they were passionately in love with you, but couldn't see you for the next few weeks because they had, you know, errands to run and work stuff to take care of and on weekends they're just tired--that's not a courtship that you would find very compelling.
But sure, Passionate about education.
Then the narrative. American education used to be great, but now it's a "system in decline." with low test scores (by students who in many cases started their education under President Donald Trump). Also, two thirds of public colleges are "beset by violent crime on campuses every year." I'm honestly not sure where that number comes from (and pretty soon it will be exactly the kind of number that we will have no valid way to search) and I'm pretty sure it's made up. Also, student suicide rates are up over last two decades; that's correct (and again, I'm not sure how we'll know once the CDC is fully silenced).
She goes straight from "suicide rates are up" to "we can do better by teaching students basic reading and mathematics." Also, we can do better for college freshmen facing "censorship or anti-Semitism" (freshmen facing other kinds of bias or hate speech are just SOL). And we can do better for "parents and grandchildren who worry their children and grandchildren are no longer taught American values and true history." I have an idea for this one-- we could reduce their worry by reducing the number of inflammatory lies they are told about what's taught in school. But I'll bet that's not what she wants to propose.
"In many cases," she says, not indicating which cases she has in mind, "our wounds are caused by the consolidation of power in our federal education establishment. So what's the remedy?"
Yes, it's the Trumuskian Big Government pretzel with bullshit icing.
"Fund education freedom, not government-run system." Vouchers and charters are government run systems, of course, but they are systems that absolve us all of any collective obligation to make sure that every child has the chance to get a decent education.
"Listen to parents, not politicians." But only some parents. Not the gay ones or the ones with trans kids or the ones with brown skins who are poisoning our blood. Also note that in this formulation, we don't have to listen to taxpayers who don't actually have children in school. Nor will we mention the school board members elected by those taxpayers.
"Build up careers, not college debt" by which they mean if you can't afford go to college without borrowing a bunch of money, don't go.
"Empower states, not special interests." Unless the state or local system makes choices we don't like here in DC, in which case we are going to punish them.
"Invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats," except when we are the Washington bureaucrats. Also, teachers are a well-known special interest group out to screw us all, so maybe we'll just hold off on this one.
Now for the "if confirmed as secretary" part where we get to the list of empty promises and action items. She'll work with Congress "to reorient the Department toward helping educators, not controlling them," which is a pretty hilarious promise coming from the administration that has an ever-lengthening list of things educators are not allowed to do or say.
Now we get one of her best non-sequiturs:
My experience as a business owner and leader of the small Business Administration as a public servant in the state of Connecticut, and more than a decade of service as a college trustee has taught me to put parents, teachers, and students, not bureaucracy first.
Yes, the World Wrestling Federation is famous for how it put parents and students and teachers first, likewise the Small Business Administration.
"Outstanding teachers are tired of political ideology in their curriculum and red tape on their desks." Which is why we are creating a bunch of policies and an actual curriculum telling them to put the correct political ideology in their curriculum, or else we'll cut off their funding. But those tired teachers are apparently why "school choice is a growing movement." Because it's a way to escape micro-managing by those stupid bureaucrats and their demands that schools not discriminate or use public funds to finance religious indoctrination or meet certain minimum standards for educational quality.
We should boost career education, especially in STEM. Fair enough. Post-secondary pathways! Career-aligned programs. Internships, "For American companies need high skill employees." More jobs in fields like tech and health-care for non-degree persons. Colleges should be transparent about courses of study that are aligned to workforce demand. None of this silly liberal arts stuff. More meat widgets, please!
"The United States is the world leader by far in emerging technologies like AI and blockchain" is not quite the boast the DOGE intern who inserted it into her speech thinks it is. "We need to invest in American students who want to become tech pioneers." Invest how?
Now pay attention to this next DOGE-approved point--
We should encourage innovative new institutions, develop smart accountability systems and tear down barriers to entry so that students have real choice and universities are not saddling future families with insurmountable debt.
Khan Academy. And remember The Ledger-- training from anywhere and your credentials stored on the blockchain, so that corporations can pick out meat widgets just like shopping at Amazon.
"We must protect all students from discrimination and harassment," she declares. Got an example? Jewish students discriminated against. Trans students in girls sports and bathrooms--no, she's not protecting them, she's protecting everyone else from them. She doesn't bring up DEI here, but it's the same model-- that stuff discriminates against white kids, and that's the discrimination we have to stop. MAGA feels picked on, and by God it's going to stop, because that's the only discrimination that is real or which matters.
Also, she wants to protect the "right of parents to direct the moral education of their children." And the federal government is going to protect that right by deciding what the correct moral education is and silencing anyone who disagrees with them. The Trumuskian Big Government Pretzel-- freeing us from a micromanaging federal government by micromanaging harder than any administration ever has before.
The question period offers more of the same, and I'm not going to wade through all of that here, and honestly, there's little to learn from any of it. She will distribute funds that Congress has authorized and appropriated, and she may want to check with her bosses on that, because that ship has already sailed, and anyway, she thinks President Musk is doing fine. She supports the idea that various ed funding streams can be shifted to other departments, because despite her passion for education, you don't need any interest in or knowledge of education to manage programs like IDEA or Title I.
She dodged the No Right Answer questions. Do Black history courses or student clubs for particular ethnicities or Martin Luther King Day celebrations violate the Trump order on "radical indoctrination"? Of course it does, but she's too smart to say so out loud in this hearing, so she takes a pass on that one, and refusing to pay even lip service to what should be an easy "No, those things are important and shouldn't be wiped out" sends a clear, chilling, and unsurprising message to schools across the country.
So we're going to get what we've known we were going to get-- someone whose agenda is to cut and slash the department, someone who is not knowledgeable about education (just, you know, passionate), someone with a childish faith in market competition, and someone who is fully on board with the right wing goal of getting the government completely out of the education biz. Someone who is not bothered by the conflicting goals of "send education back to the states" and "tell state and local systems what they are not allowed to say or do."
If you want to use up energy opposing her nomination, knock yourself out. There's no universe in which Trump and Musk nominate someone who isn't committed to privatizing education and gutting the federal department. She's going to be awful, and we'll all need to pay attention and watch to see exactly which fumes are given off by this particular dumpster fire.
I've been saying that Trump can't have both of his education dreams--if he sends federal education money to the states in stringless block grants, he can't also use the threat of withholding funds from schools that don't follow his education decrees (never mind that the second option would be illegal).
I was wrong-- and it too Corey DeAngelis to show me how.
DeAngelis (current gig- the American Culture Project) is in the pages of the right-tilted New York Post, arguing for the shutdown of the Department of Education "for the sake of the kids," and it's filled with all the usual baloney. The teachers unions are a "money-laundering operation for the radical left" and the department was a payoff from Jimmy Carter. The department is an "unconstitutional waste of time and money" and Trump should go ahead and turn all that funding into block grants--
Except that some states, the block grants wouldn't be used the right way. DeAngelis proposes a solution:
To solve this problem, any legislation Congress passes to shut down the Department of Education must say that a state can only receive block-grant funding from the shuttered department if it has a robust school-choice program.
That would solve Trump's problem. Give piles of unregulated money to states that have already adopted his preferred policy, and keep your hands on the purse strings for states you oppose in order to punish them for not privatizing their education system. "Robust" is a nicely vague word that he could define any way he wanted to (prediction: non-robust systems would be found in blue states).
Of course, some agency in DC would have to be in charge of managing those purse strings, but any functionary can be used to implement Dear Leader's will.
So there it is-- one more way that the party of local government can extend federal control. If you comply with Dear Leader's will, you get the money, and if you don't, you have to dance through his hoops for it.
You know, I'm old enough that I can remember when conservatives were mad at the Obama administration for playing similar games.
As Trump and President Musk flood the zone, it is impossible for any one person to track and respond to it all (which is, of course, part of the point). And I don't intend to try to keep up beyond the education piece, partly because I can't and partly because one of my fears is that state and local fires will burn untended while everyone tries to navigate the flooded zone. It feels so much like there's nothing that many of us can do.
Still.
The attack on the federal government perfectly mirrors the last few decades of attacks on public education. "Look, I hold here in my hand proof that this system is failing!" Followed by delegitimizing authorities. Stripping people within the system of autonomy, while promoting authoritarian forms of boss-ship ("because this thing needs a strong leader to straighten out everyone else)". The trying to shut it all down in part or in full. The only thing missing from the Trump/Musk regime is an offer of piddling vouchers so that citizens can have greater "freedom."
There's an awful lot going on in several arenas, and a lot of discussion about checks and balances and what names to call the regime and how to strategize attempts to hold it back, from filing lots of lawsuits to trying to find out what kind of crazy glue has the asses of Democratic Congresspersons stuck to the bench.
I want to make one observation. At the root of all the various actions by the regime is a simple principle-- the nation shouldn't have to take care of Those People. Get rid of DEIO, because we shouldn't look after Those People just because they belong to a particular group (or because they are human beings and so are we). We shouldn't look after LGBTQ persons (in fact, we should wipe the T out of existence). We shouldn't look after people in other countries, especially if they have come to our country (we sometimes remember to specify "just the illegal ones" and sometimes not). Definitely not the people who ever opposed us, or tried to investigate us. The list is huge and getting huger every day.
It is almost explicit. It would have been a simple thing, when going after USAID, to pay lip service to simple empathy and social responsibility: "Of course we will make sure that people who are dependent on USAID grants for life-saving treatments are not hurt. We will make sure not to damage anything that can't be fixed later. And we will do this carefully and thoughtfully." They could have at least acknowledged the idea in a lie and gone about their fast breaking of all the things.
But they haven't, at any point, and everything taken together, I have to conclude that the root point of all this is to wave a finger at all the rabble, all the people who aren't white male billionaires or the fans thereof, and say, "We are not taking care of you any more. We have no obligation to you as fellow humans. If you deserved more than what you have, you would have earned it. If you haven't, tough shit." And also, "See those people over there? I'm pretty sure they're out to get you."
This is the Randian dream-- to create a country in which you never have to care about anyone but yourself and your close personal circle (as long as they stay loyal to you). That is what being a king really means-- nobody can ever make you care about anyone else. (Well, that's what it means to people who don't bother with history.)
A country in which nobody has to empathize, to sympathize, to care about other human beings. Where there's a long list of less-thans, and you can treat them as poorly as you want. Where people are moved by fear and/or power. That's the foundational animating principle under all of this.
Yes, there are people who get caught up in it because of particular feelings about particular issues. When a regime puts its stamp on everything, it will inevitably put its stamp on issues about which reasonable people can disagree (though it will, paradoxically, use that to argue that you should not be too dogmatic about your side, but common sense tells them that their side is unequivocally correct, and attempts at a conversation with them will be frustrating and frustrated because as long you're bothering to talk about it, they will feel as if they're winning, and who, they think, gives ground when they're winning, because the Point is not to search for a truth, but to dominate).
So, in all of this, one of the most fundamental acts of resistance is simply treating other human beings like human beings. It is empathy and sympathy. It is looking for ways to celebrate and foster joyous connections.
The anti-life of the regime embraces the view that everyone is out to get you. It requires a sense of aggrieved complaint because it is always aggrieved about something. It's a projection. "I know everyone is always out to get someone, because I know that's how people are, because I know that's how I am." They will always be coming for another group, and at the same time, there will always be palace intrigue. Someone new will always be in. Today we are all stamping out Mugwumps to protect the Kaknots; next week, we will turn and attack the Kaknots.
Resistance means not becoming that. It means caring for other humans, looking out for other humans, feeling for other humans (even less-than-delightful other humans).
Teachers are well-positioned for this sort of resistance, because they have a classroom of other humans every day. I always called teaching a kind of guerilla warfare, work that you undertake often in spite of the people who are supposed to be supporting you. If you are going to get your students the educational elevation they deserve (by virtue of being human beings), sometimes you have to defy a few rules. They deserve a decent education, to learn all they can about reading and writing and the world, more than rulemakers deserve unthinking obedience. That's going to be more true than ever.
For those of us not in the classroom, the need will be to maintain human connections, to be part of a community, to remember the parts of our personal faiths that aren't centered on smiting and punishing, and just generally resist the attempts to create a country and culture centered on a harsh, uncaring worship of power, a national ethic of "I've got mine, Jack. You're on your own."
It's not going to stop the dismantling of government agencies or flouting of law or stomping on the Constitution, but as I wade through the ugliness on line and read the comments from the regime, I can't help feeling that actual care for other human beings is going to be a radical act of resistance going forward. If nothing else, it's something that every single one of us can do.
This week was the second and final leg of my cataract surgery journey, and for those of you contemplating such an adventure, let me assure you that it's not so bad. Lefty spent 24 hours behind a shield, and since righty isn't a lot of help, I had to go 24 hours basically without any reading or writing, which turns out to be difficult. But apart from some discomfort in those hours, it has been largely trouble free. In a month I'll get a new prescription for glasses and life will be back to better-than-the-previous-normal.
Yesterday was also our annual ice festival in town, where the park is filled with a bunch of ice sculptures. The board of directors enjoys it, and there is still a little beauty in a grim part of the year.
In the meantime, stuff has been happening. Here's your education reading for the week.
ProPublica publishes a report from Aliyya Swaby and Paige Phleger about the child who shot up his school cafeteria, killing two (including himself) in Tennessee.
Yeah, this is also not news, but when your MAHA uncle tries to bring this up, FactCheck.org has the details you can bring up so that he can ignore them.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon offers a little history lesson in the business of trying to inflict right wing indoctrination on local schools--even in red states.
Benjamin Riley has lived in South Africa and was in New YHork City on 9/11, and he uses those experiences to anchor a powerful piece about living in Trump's USA.
The bill was sponsored by Senator Terry Johnson and co-sponsored by seven other Ohio worthies, and it at least attempts to provide some fig leaves to go with its aim of requiring school boards to post the Ten Commandments in each classroom. The board "shall select" at least one of the following:
The Mayflower Compact The Declaration of Independence The Northwest Ordinance The mottoes of the United States and Ohio The Ten Commandments The Magna Carta The Bill of Rights The United States Constitution The Articles of Confederation
(And before you freak out, the Articles of Confederation are not from 1860, but from 1777--essentially the first attempt at a Constitution).
Again, the choice is required, and in the hands of the local board of education. Will plenty of districts choose one of the secular options? Sure they will. But for those who want to breeze past the First Amendment and do some religion establishment in the classroom, this bill provides cover.
In fact, the local board can even erect "a monument or other marker" inscribed with one or more of these documents, and put it anywhere on school grounds.
The district may take contributions of either funding or the actual displays. They tried this in Texas with "In God We Trust" posters, and Patriot Mobile, the Oh So Very Christian mobile phone company donated a bunch of posters. Of course, so did folks who incorporated rainbows and arabic writing, leading a huge dustup over just what sort of trust students were supposed to be tossing toward which gods. The Ohio law includes a clause that if the contributor tries to tell the school how to do their display, the school can turn them down.
The Ohio display has to include an explanation of the historical importance of the item displayed, otherwise it would be obvious that the school had put up a religious display. This "historical importance" dodge is popular with the religious display-in-school crowd, at least until the Supreme Court finally rules that it would inhibit the free exercise of christianists not to be able to impose their religion on schools.
An actual Christian might be a bit put off by the way this bill equates a sacred text with some political documents, as if the founding fathers and the Great I Am are pretty much on equal footing, much like the Louisiana Ten Commandments law suggests putting up posters that equate Moses with Speaker Mike Johnson.
Will the Ohio legislature show some sense? One never knows. Stay tuned.
Alaska's Mike Dunleavy is one more governor who really wants to cut into his state's public education sector. Lately he's been publishing editorials to boost the idea of expanding the charter sector in Alaska, making claims such as calling Alaska charter schools "the envy of the nation" and claiming they can boast being Number 1.
The numbers don’t lie: Alaska’s charter schools consistently outperform traditional public schools in academic achievement, parental satisfaction and student engagement.
Except that's not true.
Dunleavy is basing his claims on this report from Paul Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel in the Journal of School Choice (a real legitimate academic journal and certainly not a clearing house for advocacy masqu3erading as real academic research). Shakeel is a UK professor who has co-published reports with choice luminaries like Robert Maranto, Patrick Wolf, and Corey DeAngelis. Paul Peterson, of the Harvard Kennedy School, has made a career out of producing research that supports charter and voucher programs (Josh Cowen covers him extensively inThe Privateers).
We could talk about how the report was commissioned by the Walton Foundation in order to buttress the case for charter schools, and I would love to talk about how it depends on scores from the Big Standardized Test to make its claims. But here's the thing about the Peterson/Shakeel report-- it doesn't even say what Dunleavy says it says.
Public schools do not appear anywhere in the paper, which is strictly a state by state comparison of charter school performance on the NAEP (the "gold standard" of national B S Tests). There are seven tables that rank states; Alaska is first in only two of them.
In January, Beth Zirbes and Mike Bronson wrote a paper that further debunks Dunleavy's claims. Zirbes has a masters degree in both mathematics and statistics, and teaches high school math and statistics. Bronson holds a doctorate in biology and volunteers with the Anchorage NAACP, and their analysis is simple and clear. "Student achievement" has very little to do with charter vs. public school and everything to do socioeconomic status. And if you like visuals, Zirbes and Bronson drew a picture:
The authors found that charter schools on average "have very different student bodies than neighborhood schools." Charters had proportionately fewer poor students and English language learners. In fact, they found "Alaska charter school student bodies look like private schools in the
Lower 48 states more than they resemble charter school students in the Lower 48"-- Alaska charter students are richer and whiter than charter students in the Lower 48.
In 2019, just 3.5% of neighborhood schools in Alaska had fewer than 20% rates of economically disadvantaged students. Almost half of charter schools had below 20%. Only three of Alaska's twenty-eight charters enroll more than 10% of their student body from the ranks of English language learners. 157 of the state's neighborhood schools were above 10%.
Zirbes and Bronson also note that the Peterson could not share what actual samples were used for his study. Nor does his study allow for the fact that Alaska's charter population is self-selecting, and no sort of control group was involved.
Bottom line, once again-- controlling for the characteristics of the students involved, there is no evidence that charter schools do anything better than public schools, other than selecting higher-performing students.
.jpg)
.jpg)
