Teacher in a Strange Land: Holding Kids Back Teacher in a Strange Land: Holding Kids Back When Michigan passed a mandated retention law for third graders who were not testing at grade level, back in 2016, I thought it was a terrible idea. I wrote about it, in several venues—the idea that children who wanted to master reading, but had been unable to, for whatever reason, would…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can Schools Reduce Obesity in Children and Youth? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can Schools Reduce Obesity in Children and Youth? Public schools have been drafted again and again to fight national problems (e.,g., racial segregation, teenage pregnancy, cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, and drug use). Americans believe that schools must be part of any solu…

Answer Sheet: New Breed of Charter School Pushes Limits on Separation of Church, State Answer Sheet: New Breed of Charter School Pushes Limits on Separation of Church, State The religious right scored a win this week when Oklahoma’s virtual charter school board approved the opening of the nation’s first religious charter school, which, if it is actually allowed to open as planned in 2024 for grades K-12, will weave C…

Letters from the Future (of Learning): With Generative A.I., We are Frogs in the Pot Letters from the Future (of Learning): With Generative A.I., We are Frogs in the Pot Whether the story of the frog in the pot is true or not, one thing seems clear: We homo sapiens are the ones being cooked — slowly, inexorably — even though our insistence on pretending otherwise stubbornly persists. Case in point: the major stor…

Shanker Blog: Demystifying the Science of Reading Shanker Blog: Demystifying the Science of Reading Over the past year, the Albert Shanker Institute has been examining four years worth of literacy legislation — stay tuned for our report, which will be released soon. In discussing our findings with colleagues and friends, we often find ourselves starting from scratch, filling gaps,…

Gadfly on the Wall: Efforts to Legalize Child Labor Are the Next Logical Step After Corporate Education Reform Gadfly on the Wall: Efforts to Legalize Child Labor Are the Next Logical Step After Corporate Education Reform Standardized testing.  Privatizing public schools.  Defunding poor students.   What’s next?  Republicans across the United States have an answer – legalizing child labor.  Since 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act, the …

Janresseger: 10 Reasons Why Matt Huffman’s Proposed Ohio Voucher Explosion Is So Dangerous Janresseger: 10 Reasons Why Matt Huffman’s Proposed Ohio Voucher Explosion Is So Dangerous What is the Ohio Senate’s private school tuition voucher proposal? While the Ohio House Budget passed last month would dangerously expand private school tuition vouchers (called scholarships by the legislature) by bumping up family eligibilit…

Radical Eyes for Equity: Critically Reconsidering Teacher Education (and NCTQ’s Shoddy Reports): A Reader Radical Eyes for Equity: Critically Reconsidering Teacher Education (and NCTQ’s Shoddy Reports): A Reader In 2018, a simplistic but compelling story was established: Teachers do not know how to teach children to read (60+% are not proficient readers!) because teacher educators have failed to teach the “science of reading” (SOR) in …

Z/Our Schools: Right-Wing Indoctrination in Charter Schools at Taxpayer Expense Z/Our Schools: Right-Wing Indoctrination in Charter Schools at Taxpayer Expense Charges that public schools are subjecting children to leftwing indoctrination are proving to be mostly over-hyped or not at all based in fact. Yet, there’s evidence, according to a new report, that a fast-growing sector of the charter school industry i…

Curmudgucation: Would Legalizing Discrimination Improve Education Curmudgucation: Would Legalizing Discrimination Improve Education Corey DeAngelis is one of the young choice bros, working for the DeVos American Federation for Children, CATO, Reason, Education Freedom Institute, etc etc. And while I can remember a time when one could have a civil Twitter exchange with him, nowadays he’s followed …

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Can a State Reading Program Be a Success if Students Are Segregated and Hungry? Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Can a State Reading Program Be a Success if Students Are Segregated and Hungry? Nicholas Kristof’s recent New York Times opinion piece, Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education, showcases a troubling disregard for segregated schooling and the poverty in which children find themselve…

Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Arizona: Vouchers Might Bankrupt the State Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Arizona: Vouchers Might Bankrupt the State Arizona is a typical voucher state. The program started small, then grew almost every year. Vouchers for the students with special needs, vouchers for the poor, vouchers for children of the military, on and on. Parents and teachers put a referendum on the ballot in 20…

Teacher in a Strange Land: What Feeds Bias in Education World? Teacher in a Strange Land: What Feeds Bias in Education World? One of the most genuinely enlightening experiences of my professional career was the multi-day bias training offered (at that time) by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, required of teachers who were training to score portfolio entries of candidates…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Will ChatGPT Alter How Teachers Teach? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Will ChatGPT Alter How Teachers Teach? “hatbots could be used as powerful classroom aids that make lessons more interactive, teach students media literacy, generate personalized lesson plans, save teachers time on admin, and more.” The hullabaloo in and out of schools over thi…

Janresseger: Orwellian Language and the Moral Perversion of American Politics Janresseger: Orwellian Language and the Moral Perversion of American Politics Back in 2021, in a policy memo, Understanding the Attacks on Critical Race Theory, scholars at the National Education Policy Center described the working philosophy of Christopher Rufo, the right-wing political operative we have, since that time, come to …

David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Simon Sarris: School Is Not Enough David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Simon Sarris: School Is Not Enough This post is an essay by Simon Sarris that recently appeared in the magazine Palladium. Here’s a link to the original.  I can’t say that I buy the argument Sarris is making here, but I sure find it illuminating.  He’s saying that we used to induct …

Code Acts in Education: PedagoGPT Code Acts in Education: PedagoGPT Artificial intelligence might be top of the tech hype pinnacle right now, but maintaining its momentum requires turning short-term novelty into long term patterns and habits of use. A recent proliferation of educational courses to train users in generative AI, like image and text generators, is int…

Answer Sheet: What It Really Takes to Help Students Succeed Answer Sheet: What It Really Takes to Help Students Succeed The 10 criteria for the Schools of Opportunity project. (National Education Policy Center) Yes, we do know how to help students succeed in school. Too many schools just don’t do it. Last month I published an excerpt of a new book (“Schools of Opportunity: 10 Research-Base…

Radical Eyes for Equity: Mainstream Media Fails Educational Research (Still) Radical Eyes for Equity: Mainstream Media Fails Educational Research (Still) From CNN:   This sounds really compelling; it fits into a cultural narrative that breast feeding is superior to using baby formula. This sounds really compelling until about ten paragraphs in and then: “Though the results are certainly interesting, you ha…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: When the Last Real Teacher Says Goodbye: The Dangerous Myths Driving Their Exit Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: When the Last Real Teacher Says Goodbye: The Dangerous Myths Driving Their Exit As this year’s Teacher Appreciation Week ends, Americans might want to think about a country without real teachers. In the future, technology may control and monitor children. Their data will continue to be sought after…