Curmudgucation: Advocacy, Journalism, and the Science of Reading Curmudgucation: Advocacy, Journalism, and the Science of Reading My position in the reading wars is pretty simple: The person who claims that one particular approach to reading instruction, codified in law and disseminated through teacher-proof scripted program-in-a-box instruction, will successfully turn every single child into a …

Curmudgucation: Teach for America Is Rebranding Again (Again) Curmudgucation: Teach for America Is Rebranding Again (Again) Teach For America is announcing its new “brand identity,” and it’s…well, not great.  The announcement, nominally by TFA honchos Elisa Villaneueva Beard, is a word salad with a dressing of corporate argle bargle: This view is moving and remarkable, and it has called us …

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 …

Curmudgucation: Do Vouchers Make Babies? Curmudgucation: Do Vouchers Make Babies? Sometimes, choicers really, really reach to push their policy ideas. There is a now-classic formula used by reformsters and choicers: 1) Define a problem, including the consequences. 3) Propose your solution. Yeah, it just skips Step 2, which is the part where you build a connection between …

Curmudgucation: Should We Spare the Rod? Curmudgucation: Should We Spare the Rod? Classroom chaos is an issue. How bad is it? Why is it bad? What do we do? (Warning: this ended up being quite a ramble). Daniel Buck raised a bit of an internet stir with a complaint about school discipline issues, “Don’t Spare the Rod,” that ends with this rather dark paragraph: Schools fai…

Curmudgucation: The Pandemic and the Testing Red Herring Curmudgucation: The Pandemic and the Testing Red Herring The pandemic exacerbated some of US education’s major problems, and that’s reflected in the effects on children. Unfortunately, it’s also reflected in how we respond to those effects; policies that were a bad idea in “normal” times become terrible ideas in a post-pandemic wor…