Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: TFA Touts Some Conclusions of New ‘Meta-Analysis’ But Only the Favorable Ones Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: TFA Touts Some Conclusions of New ‘Meta-Analysis’ But Only the Favorable Ones According to Teach For America, the average teacher in this country is pretty bad. The main deficiency of the average teacher, they say, is that the average teacher in this country does not believe in kids as much as Teach For Amer…

Curmudgucation: Supporting Teachers Curmudgucation: Supporting Teachers How do we help teachers be better? Robert Pondiscio is fond of pointing out that A) you go into battle with the army you have, not the one you wish you had and B) with around 4 million teachers in the country, many are likely to be just regular human beings and not super-teachers. He’s not wrong…

Shanker Blog: What Makes High-Quality Afterschool Programming Shanker Blog: What Makes High-Quality Afterschool Programming When I was in undergrad, I worked at an afterschool program (ASP) for elementary school students that was one blacktop playground away from another. Every year, we would have one or two parents switch their child from our program to theirs. While the switch almost always…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Give the Gift of Removing Reading Pressure on Kindergartners! Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Give the Gift of Removing Reading Pressure on Kindergartners! This holiday season, give children the gift of reading. One of the best ways to do that is to relieve the pressure of insisting they read early. Some children might pick up reading when they’re very young, but others will learn a little …

Josh Cowen’s Newsletter: Vouchers by Any Other Name Are Still Vouchers—And Let’s Talk About Fraud Josh Cowen’s Newsletter: Vouchers by Any Other Name Are Still Vouchers—And Let’s Talk About Fraud Hello and Happy New Year! By the time you’re reading this, most state legislatures will already be in session, a new Congress will be gaveling in, and the second Trump presidency is about to make landfall. I want to use this first news…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Who ARE These People? Teacher in a Strange Land: Who ARE These People? For most of my adult life (other than a brief but wonderful stint in the People’s Republic of Ann Arbor), I’ve been the proverbial blue dot on a red background. Although I am out there as a Democrat (on the executive board of the county party, and Democratic candidate for office), I …

New York Almanack: The First State of the Union Address New York Almanack: The First State of the Union Address According to Article II, Sec. 3, of the United States Constitution, “The President shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” George Washington w…

Code Acts in Education: Piloting Turbocharged Fast AI Policy Experiments in Education Code Acts in Education: Piloting Turbocharged Fast AI Policy Experiments in Education The UK Labour government has announced plans to “turbocharge” the deployment of artificial intelligence in public services. Part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan drawn up by investor Matt Clifford, and agreed in full by the government, this “un…

Second Breakfast: Everything Everywhere All at Once Second Breakfast: Everything Everywhere All at Once Apparently there’s been an “incident” at PowerSchool. An incident. A breach. A hack. NBD, just one of the largest ed-tech companies in the world, provider of a student information system for about 16,000 schools (75% of districts in the US), the central piece of digital infrastruc…

Radical Eyes for Equity: The “Science of Reading” Ushers in NAEP Reading Decline: Time for a New Story Radical Eyes for Equity: The “Science of Reading” Ushers in NAEP Reading Decline: Time for a New Story With the release of the 2024 NAEP reading results, a disturbing new story is developing: Reading Scores Fall to New Low on NAEP, Fueled by Declines for Struggling Students (Education Week) Florida reading, math scores fall to l…

David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: David Brooks: Voters to Elites — Do You See Me Now? (Guest Post by David Brooks) David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: David Brooks: Voters to Elites — Do You See Me Now? (Guest Post by David Brooks) My new post is an essay by David Brooks that provides one of the best analyses I’ve read about the Trump victory.  It appeared right after the election in the New York Times.  Here’s a link to the origi…

Janresseger: Will Trump’s Education Policies Accelerate Support for School Privatization? Janresseger: Will Trump’s Education Policies Accelerate Support for School Privatization? Statewide elections two weeks ago in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska demonstrated exactly what has happened every single time referendums to support private school tuition vouchers have been brought to the public for a vote: vouchers have nev…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Pick Your Metaphor: Is School Reform More Like a Pendulum or a Hurricane? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Pick Your Metaphor: Is School Reform More Like a Pendulum or a Hurricane? The metaphor of the pendulum hides much more than it reveals. Consider that a clock pendulum swing returns almost to the same spot it left. Although there is motion, there is little change. Continuity is th…

Curmudgucation: AI Is for the Ignorant Curmudgucation: AI Is for the Ignorant Well, here’s a fun piece of research about AI and who is inclined to use it. The title for this article in the Journal of Marketing — “Lower Artificial Intelligence Literacy Predicts Greater AI Receptivity”– gives away the game, and the abstract tells us more than enough about what the resea…

Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Tom Ultican: Denver Charter School Study Is Shoddy Research Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Tom Ultican: Denver Charter School Study Is Shoddy Research Tom Ultican is a retired teacher of advanced mathematics and physics. Before joining the teaching profession, he worked in the corporate sector. He writes here about a shoddy piece of research on charter schools in Denver. Ultican writes: Another educ…

Critical Studies of Education & Technology: AI and Teachers – A Matter of Time Critical Studies of Education & Technology: AI and Teachers – A Matter of Time One common theme throughout our initial conversations about AI with teachers are issues of time. Here, the primary narrative being pushed by school leaders and AI vendors is the idea of AI as a time-saver – taking on the burden of time-consuming but ines…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Sal Khan and AI Reimagined Schools: Questions and Concerns Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Sal Khan and AI Reimagined Schools: Questions and Concerns Recently, 60 Minutes showcased Sal Khan, known for the popular Khan Academy, describing Sal Khan’s Khanmigo, a new AI-powered program promising to revolutionize teaching by giving students an online personal tutor. Here’s Khan’s TED talk, “…

Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: Who Is the New CEO of Teach for America? Gary Rubinstein’s Blog: Who Is the New CEO of Teach for America? From 1990 until 2013, the CEO of TFA was the founder, Wendy Kopp. Under her leadership the program grew from a small organization that struggled to make payroll into a powerful player in the education world. When Wendy left in 2013, Teach For America was at an all tim…

Alfie Kohn: Heterogenius Why and How to Stop Dividing People Into Us and Them Alfie Kohn: Heterogenius Why and How to Stop Dividing People Into Us and Them How can we use each other’s differences in our common battles for a livable future? – Audre Lorde Even as a child I was puzzled by people who wanted to hang out only with those who were very much like themselves. I was particularly put off by defiant defe…

Josh Cowen’s Newsletter: Thoughts on the Election, Answering Questions from My Recent PFPS Webinar, and a Renewed Opposition Josh Cowen’s Newsletter: Thoughts on the Election, Answering Questions from My Recent PFPS Webinar, and a Renewed Opposition Dear Friends, Quick Election Reactions There is a lot to be said and done about public education in the weeks, months, and years ahead. For now, I want to just call your attention to the fact that school vouc…