Radical Eyes for Equity: Close Reading: Social In/Justice and the Deficit Foundations of Oracy, Ian Cushing Radical Eyes for Equity: Close Reading: Social In/Justice and the Deficit Foundations of Oracy, Ian Cushing “Schooling in the United States is revered as a societal foundation for possibility, empowerment, and social mobility,” explain Rios, Matthews, Zentell, and Kogut, adding, “However, US schooling systems also serve as institut…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Student Differentiation v. Alignment: Know the Difference and Set Children Free Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Student Differentiation v. Alignment: Know the Difference and Set Children Free In a democracy that stresses freedom and individuality, education reformers remade public schools focusing on aligning children to narrow high-stakes standards, even before Common Core State Standards appeared in 2010….

Janresseger: Who Redefined Teaching as the Production of High Test Scores and Who Taught Us to Believe in the Myth of the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations? Janresseger: Who Redefined Teaching as the Production of High Test Scores and Who Taught Us to Believe in the Myth of the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations? The history that happens in our lifetimes is sometimes the most obscure.  We live it without thinking about it, and it hasn’t yet been recorded or analyzed by historians who hel…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Star Tech: The Next Generation of Record-Keeping Teacher in a Strange Land: Star Tech: The Next Generation of Record-Keeping In her last year of a degree program in Justice Studies, my daughter took a course called “Surveillance in Society.” The readings and discussion were around intrusions into personal privacy and data made possible by technology. Dear Daughter and I had many …

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Whatever Happened to Mayoral Control of Urban Public Schools? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Whatever Happened to Mayoral Control of Urban Public Schools? On the ever-changing agenda of reformers seeking to improve outcomes of U.S. schooling, how schools have been governed ranked in the middle and seldom rose to the top. Locally elected school boards, established in the …

Curmudgucation: Voucher Bankruptcy’s Feature Future Curmudgucation: Voucher Bankruptcy’s Feature Future It is no longer news that school voucher programs lead to increasing costs, costs that swiftly balloon to suck up extraordinary piles of taxpayer dollars in state after state, threatening to bust the budget.  Public education advocates have been pointing this out in state after st…

Code Acts in Education: Saliva Samples and Social Policy Code Acts in Education: Saliva Samples and Social Policy Claims that genetic data could be used to inform educational policy or practice have been growing for the last decade. Studies examining the connections between genetics and educational outcomes have captured media and public attention, as well as leading to significant criti…

Code Acts in Education: The Power of Edtech Investors in Education Code Acts in Education: The Power of Edtech Investors in Education Venture capital investors are increasingly powerful in education, with the wealth and resources to shape schooling and universities in the future. Edtech has become a major presence in education over the last decade or so, promoted through ideals of transforming ped…

Gadfly on the Wall: Teaching in Pennsylvania’s Unconstitutional School Funding System Gadfly on the Wall: Teaching in Pennsylvania’s Unconstitutional School Funding System t’s hard not to wonder about things in my new basement classroom. I kill what bugs I can, wipe away the damp from the desks and try to think over the rattling hum of the ancient overhead heating and cooling system. The room is about 1/3 smaller th…

Curmudgucation: Let’s Just Test All The Damned Year Curmudgucation: Let’s Just Test All The Damned Year One of the repeated techniques of reformsters is this: when a proposed policy fails, insist that we need to do it more harder. Using the Big Standardized Test as the foundation of all school evaluation is a failure. It hasn’t provided teachers with actionable data. It hasn’t impro…

Janresseger: Research Shows State School District Report Cards Do Not Measure the Quality of Public Schools Janresseger: Research Shows State School District Report Cards Do Not Measure the Quality of Public Schools The state of Ohio released 2023 public school district report cards last week.  As usual, the press has reported that the state’s wealthy exurban school districts are the champions, and poor rural and urban districts are the …

Answer Sheet: The Big Problems With College and K-12 School Rankings Answer Sheet: The Big Problems With College and K-12 School Rankings The U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 college rankings came out last week, as my colleague Nick Anderson notes, with a somewhat revamped methodology that does not escape what has been growing criticism of the enterprise. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona captured s…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Students Taking Timed Tests (Adam Grant) (Guest Post by Adam Grant) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Students Taking Timed Tests (Adam Grant) (Guest Post by Adam Grant) Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He authored “Hidden Potential” and “Think Again.” He also hosts the TED podcast “Re: Thinking.” A few years ago, I …

Curmudgucation: How Vouchers Bust State Budgets Curmudgucation: How Vouchers Bust State Budgets One of the consistent features of voucher programs is that they grow, sometimes rapidly, to suck up huge chunks of the state budget. Nobody understands this better than Arizona’s Governor Katie Hobbs. She posted this memo on the Dead Bird app yesterday: Hobbs has rung this alarm bell…

LA Progressive: Community Schools Address the Youth Mental Health Crisis LA Progressive: Community Schools Address the Youth Mental Health Crisis Kaci Rodriguez knew her son was struggling mentally. His behavior was increasingly impulsive. He was becoming more easily distracted. And he was having more trouble with academic work and behavior issues at his elementary school. When she brought her concerns …

Janresseger: Ohio Has a New Universal Voucher Program, and the Problems Are Already Starting Janresseger: Ohio Has a New Universal Voucher Program, and the Problems Are Already Starting As we watch the emergence of Ohio’s new universal school voucher program, passed in June as part of the state’s new biennial budget, problems have already become apparent. Voucher Program Is Already Exceeding Cost Estimates It is already cl…

Radical Eyes for Equity: Forty Years of Failure: When Caricature Drives Education Reform in Post-Truth America Radical Eyes for Equity: Forty Years of Failure: When Caricature Drives Education Reform in Post-Truth America Reporting for NPR about A Nation at Risk, Anya Kamenetz (2018) noted: When it appeared in April 1983, the report received widespread coverage on radio and TV. President Reagan joined the co-authors in a series of public h…

Answer Sheet: Why a New Attack on Small Class Size Doesn’t Add Up Answer Sheet: Why a New Attack on Small Class Size Doesn’t Add Up In 2014, I wrote this: “Every now and then someone in education policy (Arne Duncan) or education philanthropy (Bill Gates) …. will say something about why class size isn’t really very important because a great teacher can handle a boatload of kids.” Well, some can…

Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: Success Academy Games U.S. News & World Report Best High School Ranking Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: Success Academy Games U.S. News & World Report Best High School Ranking In the latest U.S. News & World Report Best High School Ranking 2023-2024, the Success Academy High School was ranked the 102nd best high school in the country and the 12th best high school in New York State. Here is the list of the top …

Gadfly on the Wall: If You Don’t Want Teachers to be Saviors, Don’t Put Them on a Cross Gadfly on the Wall: If You Don’t Want Teachers to be Saviors, Don’t Put Them on a Cross At the end of the school year, I like to show my 8th grade students the movie “Freedom Writers.”  t’s a good culminating film for the class because many of the subjects and texts we read are mentioned by the characters – “The Diary of Anne Fran…