10th Period: Vouchers, Like Their Advocates, Move to the ‘Burbs 10th Period: Vouchers, Like Their Advocates, Move to the ‘Burbs Whenever I think about Ohio’s EdChoice Voucher Program, I keep coming back to Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s majority opinion in 2002 that found Cleveland’s voucher program — EdChoice’s predecessor — constitutional: “Any objective observer familiar with the full hi…

Curmudgucation: Cato’s Failed Argument Against Public School Curmudgucation: Cato’s Failed Argument Against Public School Colleen Hroncinch of Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom tried this week to plug one of the pro-public education arguments that the Libertarian think tank runs up against when pushing choice.  Do public schools serve everyone, she asks. She does not make a convi…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Critical Issues and Minutiae of Public Education Teacher in a Strange Land: Critical Issues and Minutiae of Public Education I have been fascinated, in the past 48 hours, by online conversations about the tumultuous political week we have just lived through—especially the comments and questions generated by teachers. Non-teachers are heartbroken or thrilled or both, by the Biden …

Janresseger: Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education Janresseger: Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education In last week’s Washington Post, Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein explore what they call “a fading church-state line” in education: “The expansion in voucher programs is part of a broader move in some states toward more government-sponsored religion insid…

Shanker Blog: New Hampshire’s Divisive Concepts Law Was Ruled Unconstitutional, Sending a Message to the Nation Shanker Blog: New Hampshire’s Divisive Concepts Law Was Ruled Unconstitutional, Sending a Message to the Nation Our guest author is Deb Howes, President of AFT-NH. A version of the article originally appeared in the Concord Monitor on June 14, 2024. A funny thing happened on New Hampshire’s way to threatening to fire teachers for t…

Radical Eyes for Equity: Why Has Education Reform Always Failed?: “Straightforward Solutions to Complicated Questions” Radical Eyes for Equity: Why Has Education Reform Always Failed?: “Straightforward Solutions to Complicated Questions” Writing about the fundamental flaw in Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, Andrew Solomon opens with a claim that helps explain why five-decades of intensive education reform has always failed: “There is nothin…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers? (Kwame Anthony Appiah) (Guest Post by Kwame Anthony Appiah) Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers? (Kwame Anthony Appiah) (Guest Post by Kwame Anthony Appiah) Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-born philosopher, novelist, and scholar of African and African American studies. He writes a column called “The Ethicist” for The New York Ti…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Need Help! Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Need Help! Public schools stand out for their inclusive approach toward students with disabilities, in stark contrast to many charter, private, and parochial schools. This unwavering commitment ensures that every student, including those with emotion…

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher* Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: The Gift That Never Stops Giving–Being a Teacher* I wrote this post five years ago. With graduation ceremonies in K-12 and college occurring in the next few weeks, and so much written about teaching, I offer it again. A dear friend and I exchanged emails regularly. In one, she me…

David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Peter Gray: The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing: Peter Gray: The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School This post is a recent essay by Peter Gray published on his Substack, Play Makes Us Human.  Here’s a link to the original.  He is a research professor of psychology at Boston College, who has written a number of …

Janresseger: States Persistently Fail to Invest Enough in Their Public Schools Janresseger: States Persistently Fail to Invest Enough in Their Public Schools What if education funding were not merely a budgetary residual? That term entered the lexicon in Ohio back in the 1990s as part of the Ohio Supreme Court’s series of decisions in the case for adequate and equitably distributed public school funding, DeRo…

Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Reports Show How Phonics Crowds Out Quality Reading Like Picture Books Nancy Bailey’s Education Website: Reports Show How Phonics Crowds Out Quality Reading Like Picture Books In 2023, Science of Reading (SoR) supporters were offended by The Science of Reading and the Rejection of Picture Books. At that time, I included reports and observations showing an overfocus on phonics instead of reading for en…

Teacher in a Strange Land: Ignoring the Real World in the Classroom Teacher in a Strange Land: Ignoring the Real World in the Classroom Are you reading Jess Piper? If not—start now. Piper is a Missouri educator (among other things) whose commentary on teaching in a bright red state, and having been raised in a fundamentalist church, rings my chimes, again and again. She ran for a position in the MO…

Letters from the Future (of Learning) Letters from the Future (of Learning) Did you hear?  Starting this fall, Apple is upping its A.I. game — with a twist. In typical company fashion, A.I. will no longer stand for Artificial Intelligence, but Apple Intelligence, which the company will build into all your devices “to help you write, express yourself, and get things do…

Radical Eyes for Equity: The “Science Of” Era of Education Reform: Rearranging Chairs on the Deck of the Titanic (Again) Radical Eyes for Equity: The “Science Of” Era of Education Reform: Rearranging Chairs on the Deck of the Titanic (Again) The rhetoric of education reform over the past six or so years has embraced a now pervasive labeling, the “science of”—grounded in the “science of reading” (SOR) movement. Some of the defining features of the “sc…

Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Brookings Institution: Beware Voucher Advocacy Disguised as Research Diane Ravitch’s Blog: Brookings Institution: Beware Voucher Advocacy Disguised as Research Jon Valant and Nicolas Zerbino of the prestigious nonpartisan Brookings Institution examined the Arizona voucher program and were surprised to find that it was a giveaway to the richest families in the state. Voucher advocates did not like th…

Code Acts in Education: Oblongification of Education Code Acts in Education: Oblongification of Education According to Microsoft and Google, artificial intelligence is going to be fully integrated into teaching and learning in the very near future. In the space of just a few days, Google announced its LearnLM automated tutor running on the Gemini model, and Microsoft announced it was…

Critical Studies of Education & Technology: Start Where the Pain Is: Notes on Topic-Selection in Technology Studies (Vinsel 2024) Critical Studies of Education & Technology: Start Where the Pain Is: Notes on Topic-Selection in Technology Studies (Vinsel 2024) Lee Vinsel has written recently to lament the poor choice of topic selection by ‘critical’ tech researchers. In particular, he calls out the research choices of progressive academics who regularly make a…

10th Period: It’s Official: Ohio Leaders Hosing Public School Kids Today Worse Than Ever 10th Period: It’s Official: Ohio Leaders Hosing Public School Kids Today Worse Than Ever This is stunning, stunning data. But the Ohio General Assembly and Gov. Mike DeWine today are committing the smallest share of the state’s budget to educate Ohio’s public school kids in the last 50 years. And it’s not really close. What’s goin…

Naked Capitalism: Rising Talk of School Closures Fuels Expansion of the Community Schools Movement Naked Capitalism: Rising Talk of School Closures Fuels Expansion of the Community Schools Movement Yves here. Weirdly, there is apparently a perceived reduction in public school student attendance (this post questions the skimpy data) to the point that some communities of generating consideration of closing schools. It’s not unreas…