A History Lesson: The Great Leap Forward

I read about this many years ago, but for some reason it has floated up in my consciousness lately. It's a chapter in Chinese history, and if you look hard enough, you might just see some important lessons there.

In the late 1950's, Communist Party Chairman and Beloved Leader Mao Zedong decided that he wanted to bring China into a modern era, to make the country great again, so he devised the Great Leap Forward.

One of the goals of the Great Leap was to convert from an agricultural economy into an industrial one. Part of the plan to accomplish this was to combine some farmers into communal farms and to send others to the city. A book I read years ago claimed that the central government actually gathered up metal tools from rural farmers and used the metal to try to create industrial machinery, leaving families with no implements for farming or, in some cases, cooking. Meanwhile, farmers were sent into factories or their own backyard furnaces to manufacture steel and iron, because, hey, anybody can do that. Except that the result was a lot of weak, unusable steel and iron.

At the time, if you were in government you could point out that this kind of fiorced transformation of an economy was unlikely to work, but Beloved Leader got rid of anyone who showed insufficient loyalty, and the only way to display loyalty was to agree that Mao's idea was awesome.

Agricultural experts had a bad feeling about Mao's ideas, so Mao simply got himself "experts" who had no real expertise at all, but were enthusiastic about the half-assed untested amatuer hour ideas they wanted to push. Foremost among these bozos was Russian Trofim Lysenko, Stalin's favorite hack geneticist, who had brillinat ideas like the notion that plants of the same species wouldn't compete and could therefor be planted really, really close together (this turns out to not be an actual thing). His ideas were dumb and bad, but they made Mao's plan look good, so he was in.

There was also a campaign to wipe out The Four Pests (mosquitoes, rats, flies, and sparrows), which wreaks all sorts of environmental havok.

All of this set the stage for a massive agricultural failure, which the Chinese government dealt with by lying. For several years, the actual crop output plummeted, but the official government reports said the crop output was increasing, because reality must never be allowed to interfere with an authoritarian's dreams. 

To say, "There isn't enough food and the people are starving," was seen as disloyal to Beloved Leader, so people didn't say it (and if a few did, they didn't say it more than once). All official sources reported the greatest crop surplus ever. 

End result? The Great Chinese Famine. Because nobody was keeping actual reality-based data, we don't know how many died, but estimates range from 15 to 55 million. 

So, in short, an authoritarian tries to force dramatic changes through sheer force of will, discounting expertise on both the large and small scale, then when things aren't working, simply demands that anyone who wants to keep his job must prove loyalty by supporting Beloved Leader's version of events, no matter how divorced from reality that might be. Bad ideas covered by authoritarian lies and bullshit, followed by disaster. 

For some reason, it's been on my mind lately.

ID: Sarah Inama Has New Classroom (And All Are Welcome There)

Sarah Inama has put her poster up in a new classroom.

Inama, you may recall, is the 6th grade world history teacher told by her district bosses at West Ada School District that her "Everyone Is Welcome Here" poster, complete with hands of many human shades, would not be tolerated in the district.  (I've been following this here, here, and here). West Ada is the largest district in Idaho, but their treatment of Inama has been spoectacularly awful, both from an Awful Display of Racism standpoint, a Grotesque Mistreatment of Staff standpoint, and a Boneheaded PR Management standpoint. 

Inama went to local news and the story blew up, delivering the shame that West Ada so richly deserved. We know a lot more thanks to some stellar reporting by Carly Flandro and the folks at Idaho Ed News, who FOIAed 1200 emails surrounding this and showcasing the board's stumbling response. You should read the resulting stories (here and here). 

The day after Inama was on the Today show, the district issued a memo entitled "Ensuring a Consistent and Supportive Learning Environment." They decided to go with sports analogies. The Chief Academic Officer is a like a referee who enforces rules "to ensure a fair and level playing field." And there's this howler--

If one player decided to wear a different uniform, use a different-sized ball, or ignore the rules, the game would lose its structure, creating confusion and imbalance.

Then a report from BoiseDev that the Board of Trustees is considering making every teacher put up an "Everyone is welcome" poster-- just without those multi-colored hands. Responding to BoiseDev, a district spokesperson explained:

Regarding the Everyone is Welcome Here posters, the district determined that while the phrase itself is broadly positive, certain design elements have been associated over time with political entities and initiatives that are now subject to federal restriction.

Inama told Idaho EdNews, “That’s appeasing not a political view, but a bigoted view that shouldn’t even be considered by a public school district.”

Inama was told the poster was divisive, that it was "not neutral," that the problem was not the message, but the hands of v arious skin tones. Teachers shouldn't have political stuff in the classroom. Inama nails the issue here

“I really still don’t understand how it’s a political statement,” she said. “I don’t think the classroom is a place for anyone to push a personal agenda or political agenda of any kind, but we are responsible for first making sure that our students are able to learn in our classroom.”

Some parents and students showed up at school to make chalk drawings in support. And yet many folks within and outside the district saw this as a divisive issue. How could anyone do that? Meet district parent Brittany Bieghler, who was dropping her kids off the day that parents were chalking the "Everyone is welcome here" message on the sidewalks.

“The ‘Everyone is Welcome’ slogan is one filled with marxism and DEI, there is no need for those statements because anyone with a brain knows that everyone is welcome to attend school, so there is no need to have it posted, written or worn on school grounds,” she wrote. “My family and I relocated here from a state that did not align with our beliefs and we expected it to be different here, but it seems as time goes by, its becoming more like our former state, which is extremely disheartening.”

"Anyone with a brain" might begin to suspect that everyone is not welcome here under these circumstances. And the school board itself couldn't decide what to respond, drafting an assortment of emails that tried to show conciliation to those that were defiant and defensive, including one complaining in MAGA-esque tones that Inama was naughty for going to "new media."

Imana resigned from her position, and by June the word was out that she was a new hire at Boise Schools. She told Idaho Ed News, 

I’m so grateful to be able to work within a district that knows the beauty of inclusion and diversity and doesn’t for a second consider it an opinion but embraces it. As an educator, it’s an amazing feeling to know your (district’s) officials, board, and administrators fully uphold the fundamentals of public education and (have) the dignity to proudly support them. I really feel at home knowing we are truly all on the same team … and that’s a team that is rooting on all of our students.

Damned straight. And just last week, as reported by KTVB news, Inama posted video of herself putting up an "Everyone is welcome here" poster in her new classroom.

So the story ends well for Inama, and that's a great thing. This is the sort of boneheaded administrative foolishness that can drive teachers out of the profession. The unfortunate part of the story is that up the road in West Ada schools, the administration, board and a non-zero number of parents think that challenging racism is bad and saying that students of all races are welcome in school is just one person's opinion that shouldn't be expressed openly in a school. Shame on West Ada.

ICYMI: Getting Back To It Edition (8/17)

Vacation time is over and we are back at the Institute's home base. The CMO goes back to work later this week, and the board of directors gets to it next week. This will be my eighth year of not going back to the classroom, and it almost doesn't feel unspeakably weird. God bless everyone who is going back to do the work. 

Here's the reading for the week, selected from the small number of articles not concerned with Putin, Epstein, or fascism. Mostly.

Republicans demand gay school board member resign because he’s working for a Pride organization

Of course it's Florida, where the same board that Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler serves has found one more way to harass their single gay member.

Arziona Supreme Court Strikes down School Funding Method

Arizona joins the club of states compelled by the courts to fix their crappy funding system. 

Schools do not have to follow Trump administration’s DEI order, federal judge rules

You may recall that back in February the regime issued an edict saying that schools that did naughty DEI stuff would be punished. A federal judge has said that directive is unlawful and nobody has to follow it. Chalkbeat has the story.

Prescriptive Practices

Audrey Watters reports on practices of math teacher Michael Pershan, who reminds us that learning is a social activity. Then she covers all the other stuff. Have you subscribed yet?

Ending High Truancy Rates: How to Get Students to School

Nancy Bailey's title is a bit misleading, because these ideas wouldn't just get more kids to school, but would make schools all around better.

Widespread Tax Cuts Eviscerate the Social Contract

Jan Resseger looks at how the many many cuts affecte school bot directly and indirectly.

Reader mailbag

Ben Riley answers some reader qustions (and sneaks in his response to ChatGPT-5), including more news from schools making terrible mistakes.

Do You Need a Private College Counselor? I Asked the Pros

Yes, there are such things, and they aren't cheap. Akil Bello has the necessary contacts to check around and find out if you really need a private college concierge for your kid.

The Reading Proficiency Bait and Switch

Paul Thomas has a grear new name for his blog-- The Reliable Narrator-- and another good explanation of how a reading crisis has been manifactured in this country.

Kent County judge denies request to toss school librarian’s lawsuit against Moms for Liberty member

In Michigan, a school librarian was fed up with harassment and slander from the local Moms for Liberty lady, so she sued, and this week, a judgebthrew out the M4L attempt to get the case dismissed.

Read Whatever the Hell You Want

Blogger Charoltte Clymer has a short and simple point to make. You are never going to read all the great books.

This Evangelical Pastor Wants to Replace Women’s Right to Vote

David French wrote a New York Times profile of Doug Wilson, another far right pastor making Christianity look bad. As you read the profile, keep in mind one detail that French didn't include-- Wilson is one of the founding fathers of the Christian Classical Schools movement.

This week I was happy to report at Forbes.com that a judge threw out most of a Floirida book ban law. Good news there. 

There are many reasons to love the Blues Brothers movie, and not the least is that it's a master class in using a platform to lift up a whole bunch of other folks, many of whom, in 1980, had drifted away from the public eye. The Seventies had not been great for Aretha Franklin, but a new label and this kick-ass performance in the movie opened up a whbole new era of success for her. The film wasn't about co-opting current top-40 artists. And just look at how Belushi and Ackroyd stay out of the way and let the queen do her thing.

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PA: Pressure Grows and Cyber Charters Continue to Stonewall

There is a lot of noise these days around the issue of funding cyber charters in Pennsylvania. But cyber. charter operators are still betting that simply refusing to talk about the topic will save them.

Pennsylvania is the cyber charter capital of the country, and the reason is pretty simple-- cyber chartering in Pennsylvania is super-profitable. 13 or so cybers have banked over $600 million in extra dollars--dollars that they did not need to operate their education-flavored businesses. Those are all taxpayer-funded dollars, dollars that local taxpayers have to watch leave their local school district. The cybers bank it, spend it on box seats, car fleets, a mountain of marketing, and, in one case, a massive real estate empire. Many articles refer to the excess cyber money as "reserves," but the correct term is "profits." The reserves held by a public school system belong to the taxpayers; the reserves held by a charter belong to the business. If Commonwealth Charter Academy went belly-up tomorrow, its many real estate holdings would not belong to the taxpayers.

Some of the money being passed around is shady as hell. For instance, Commonwealth Charter Academy, the states largest, richest cyber-business, turns out to pay parents $550 a month to serve as "family mentors." That's a $10K annual reward for choosing CCA. 

There are plenty of things about cyber funding that make no sense to even the casual observer. For instance, the tuition cost for a student varies wildly depending on what district the student comes from. One student might be charged less than $10K and another over $20K for exactly the same service from exactly the same school. 

There were some incremental changes last year. The GOP, for whatever reason, stands tall for the cyber charters, despite the fact that virtually all GOP reps and senators go home to districts where school boards have passed "For the love of God, fix this" resolutions. The GOP seems to favor a plan in which the state creates a huge fund that can be used to replace the buttload of money that cybers drain from public schools. This is not a great solution. For one thing, it increases the amount of taxpayer money being spent on education in the state (and not in ways that address the court order to fix the commonwealth's education funding system). 

Bills exist that could fix the funding situation-- there's one just passed by the House that the Senate could okay. But to describe the cyber industry as Dragging Their Feet would be like describing the ethical qualities of the Trump administration as mildly impaired. 

What the cybers have effectively done is refuse to be part of the conversation. The House holds hearings on cyber finance reform, and the industry steadfastly refuses to send anyone in the biz. CCA has just announced that, after tons of pressure for more transparency, they will now become less transparent about their finances. 

Sometimes when a government is facing issues with a particularh sector, you can at least get players in that sector to offer lip service. "Yes, we can see there are real problems here and we are of course deeply concerned about truth, justice, and the American way, and blah bah blah we'd like to offer this meaningless solution that doesn't solve anything." 

But the cyber charter industry doesn't even do that. "No! No! If you do that, it will drive us out of busines! We couldn't ossibly survive that level of transparency and oversight and certainly not that number being proposed as a sensible tuition level for all students in the state," they cry out as they roll around on their Scrooge McDuck style pile of money. This despite the fact that every other state that allows cyber charters does some version of all the things that PA cybers claim would be existential threats. 

I would love to believe that this time, cyber charter funding reform will finally happen. But the cyber operators are c learly betting that it won't. CCA is building a new center just up the road from me, and wbhile local school board members and even some taxpayers are upset about the state of things, I'm betting. not one of them would make our local elected GOP reps suffer any electoral consequences for their failure to protect local taxpayers. 

Until some set of GOP lawmakers in Harrisburg look te cyber industry in the eye and say, "We are doing this, with or without you," it seems unlikely that cyber operators will do anything other than protest loudly every single possible action that might be taken to fix this insanely wasteful (but profitable) payment system.If you're in PA, call your elected person, especially if they're a Republican.

The current proposed flat rate for tuition is $8,000. It's unsurprising that cybers say that's too little, but it's telling that they have nev er proposed a number that they think would be better. This is not, as some suggest, a stalled debate in which both sides are dug in; this is a stalled debate in which one side refuses to even participate because they don't think they have to.

An Excellent AI Explanation

This is one of the best things I've come across to explain for an average human being how to think of what that chatbot extruded as an answer to your prompt.

I like this because it sidesteps one of the problems of talking about AI-- as humans, we absolutely love to project intent into the world. We anthropomorphize everything. Did your family give the family car a name (we don't have a name for our cars, but we call the google map voice "Brenda")? We get mad at inanimate objects as if they thwart us on purpose--with intent. Heck, religion itself is built on the impulse to ascribe intent to the entire universe.

Trying to drive home the point that grnerative AI does not have intent in any human sense is accurate and worthwhile and also much like trying to empty Lake Erie with a spoon. 

So, sure. Let's think of generative AI as having intent-- but if we must do so, let's say that its intent is not to study up on the topic and draw wise conclusions. Its "intent" is to tell you what a response would sound like. Is it a corect response or an incorrect one? That's not a factor. Its "intent" is to extrude something that sounds like an answer would sound, not to extrude an actual answer. It is, in fact, a bullshit artist.

I came across the above image third hand, so I am not able to properly credit the daughter who originally crafted it. But this is one of those times I'm posting something not just to boost it, but to park it somewhere I'll be able to find it, because I expect this is an idea that I will come back to again.

CO: Failed Charter Accountability

“Where’s my kid going to go to school?”

That's a quote from one of the parents whose child was supposed to be going to going to Colorado Skies Academy, an aviation-centered charter school that turned out to be the 1,472.334th (estimated) charter school operated by educational amateurs who couldn't hold things together. They anounced their closing about two weeks before the school year was supposed to start.

It is one of the most undiscussed features of the charter school world-- the vast amounts of money and opportunity and, worst of all, family resources and children's education that are wasted by charter schools that are so amateur hour they can't get the job done and/or manage to stay open. It has been six years-- six years!-- since the Network for Public Education released a study showing the vast amount of federal money going to charter fraud and waste. One out of every four dollars, to the tune of a billion!

Why are we still playing at this? The deal was supposed to be a simple trade-- charter schools would get autonomy in exchange for accountability. But in some states, it's just not happening.

The weak link in Colorado is the weak link in too many other states. A charter system is supposed to depend on authorizers. Authorizers have the job of checking that charter operators can deliver on the promises they make, and shut them down if they don't. A charter is supposed to be like a contract, a deal in which the school says "We will do A, B, and C. Also, we absolutely know how to handle the nuts and bolts of staffing and funding and, you know, educating. And if we can't deliver on all that, you can shut us down."

This sounds great in theory. In practice, not so much. 

One major problem is that authorizers often have a vested interest in saying, "Yes." Take Bay Mills Community College, a two-year school with 400ish students and a location on the Might As Well Be Canada portion of Michigan. Bay Mills made a ton of money by authorizing all manner of charter schools, most of them far, far away from the college. In Michigan, as in many states, authorizers get a cut of the charter school's funding, and that's a mighty appealing argument for saying yes.

In Colorado, there's a diffrerent incentive at play. Colorado has the Colorado Charter School Instittute. CSI was formed in 2004 as an arm of state government; several states have one of these boards, and their main purpose is to answer the question, "What if I want to start a charter school and authorizers keep telling me no?" CSI has a nine-member board, seven of whom are appointed by the governor, so if the governor's policy is "Gimme more of those charter schools," the board can help implement that policy.

In other words, CSI's purpose is not to provide accountability for charter schools, but to get lots of charter schools started. Or as Manuel Solano puts it at Colorado Times Recorder, 

The majority of the CSI Board of Directors are appointed by the governor and operate by advancing their goal of approving more charter schools. CSI’s existence creates fragmented oversight, undermines local governance, and enables schools to escape accountability by switching authorizers. The result is a system where financial collapse can go unnoticed until it’s too late.

Charter schools are too often businesses masquerading as public schools, and that word "public" helps them project an image of stabilty and competence that they don't deserve. According to Solano, 32 charters have collpased under CSI's watch in the last decade. The sudden collapse of 32 schools may not seem like much, but I guarantee that if you are among the families that were counting on those schools, it's a huge deal. And or taxpayers who are footing the bill, it should also be a big deal.

The really annoying thing about charter school accountability is that it doesn't have to be this way. But too much of the charter movement believes in the Visionary CEO model, where some Elon Musk looking whizbang dudebro is free to hire and fire and remake policy as he sees fit without rules or regulations (or unions) telling him how to run his business. Let him move fast and break things, and if one of the things he breaks is the school, oh well--that's genius for you. And if someone suggests that this guy is actually an education amateur who doesn't know what the hell he's doing--well, how dare you. 

The charer accountability sec tor also suffers from a problematic worship of the invisible hand of the market place. Every closure like Colorado Skies Academy comes with at least one market clown declaring, "Well, that's just the market working the way it's supposed to," as if the workings of the market are so sacred and wise that it would be folly to take measures to, you know, protect the young human beings who are trying to get an education (or to watch out for the taxpayers whose contributions fund all these market shenanigans).

There could be accountability for charter schools, actual accountability. Standards to be met, rigorous measures before they even open their doors. It could even be done without strangling the notion of innovation (though innovation is extraordinarily rare in the charter biz). It wouldnt be any harder than what we now do with magnet or CTE schools.

We could protect the interests of young humans and their families. We could provide accountability for the taxpayers. But we don't because in some states, charter fans think the most important thing is not protecting the interests of students or providing accountability to taxpayers, but in protecting the ability of entrepreneurs to operate with little oversight and accountability. And as long as that's the primary driving force in the charter biz, we will keep hearing parents ask,

“Where’s my kid going to go to school?”

ICYMI: Great East Lake Edition (8/10)

This week we have been on the shores of Great East Lake in a cabin that was first set up by my grandfather, a New Hampshire general contractor, and which has now been enjoyed by generations of the family. So my output, already diminished as I try to wrap up a book about writing (which has no actual publisher, but I have this thing where I have to write things out of my head or they just won't leave me alone, so if you are a publisher interested in a book about writing, you know how to find me), has been way down. My intake of Devil Dogs, various forms of seafood, and hours paddling about on the water has been greatly increased. 

But I still have a list of goodies for you to read. So here we go.

An Annotated Guide to OpenAI's Enshittification of Education

Benjamin Riley dissects some more of the latest AI bullshit. Sadly hilarious.

Why the White House Backed Down From Its First Big Education Cuts

Toluse Olorunnipa writes for The Atlantic and damned if somebody other than Jennifer Berkshire has noticed that public education is popular in this country.

Asking Students to Use AI Responsibly When The Adults Aren't

Anne Lutz Fernandez points out that there's a serious problem with asking teachers to get students to do what allegedly responsible adults will not.

Bibbidi Bobbidi What?

From Sue Kingery Woltanski-- turns out that Florida vouchers aren't just paying for theme park tickets, but for some dress-up shopping sprees as well.

Educational genomics and embryo selection startups

Ben Williamson with news about some really creepy new business initiatives.

New and damning school voucher data confirm worst fears

Rob Schofield reports from North Carolina yet more findings about who is really using school vouchers.

Entire board of directors at charter school resigns after allegations of massive fraud scheme

Carlos Garcia reports for Blaze Media on a Californias charter school that has achieved spectacular levels of fraud and waste. Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools in Sacramento is a very special outfit.

Parents intervene in Missouri voucher lawsuit with help from Herzog Foundation leader

If you're not familiar with the Herzog Foundation, it's another pile of rich conservative money aimed at privatizing education. They're at it again in Missouri.

Federal judge bars Arkansas public schools from displaying the Ten Commandments

Not just barring it, but puzzling how anyone could have thought that such a thing was remotey legal.

Public schools are closing as Arizona’s school voucher program soars

Laura Meckler at the Washington Post provides a deep dive into Arizona's attempt to end public education, and how that looks on the ground for actual parents.

The White House intends to slash the education safety net

For those just waking up, David Kirp offers a quick primer on the regime's ideas about education

Inside the Parent-Led Movement For Phone-Free Schools

For Time, Charlotte Alter offers a look inside the anti-phone movement. You may or may not agree with these folks, but this provides a better picture of who they are.

Expert Douses Boston Globe’s “Science of Reading” Advocacy

Maurice Cunningham offers an expert's take on Science of Reading.

"Parental Rights" as a Pro-Voucher Slogan

Steve Nuzum explains how "parental rights" serves as a marketing term for taxpayer-funded vouchers (and segregation).

AI Literacy for Preschoolers? The Frightening Redefining of Childhood

Nancy Bailey on one of nthe less-than-brilliant ideas now kicking around about Ai and the littles.

Network for Public Education Tracks a Charter School Sector in Decline

I'm going to dig into this new report once I get back to civilization, but in the meantime, here's a good look by Jan Resseger.

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