Can We Talk? Especially About What We Ought To Expect From Schools?

Apparently a Freddie deBoer column about education got spiked, he published it himself on his Substack this weekend: What follows is a piece that I was commissioned to write for an education publication called The Grade. On submission they declared that the piece was, quote, “too hot” for publication. As I said to them, that response demonstrates …

Readers React On Parental Rights And Philanthropy, Big Friday Fish, Plus Education & Politics

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Today, reader reactions to two recent posts, a couple of items not by me you may have missed, and a serious fish. Some selected reactions to the recent post on funders and risk. A few funders wrote to say, ‘hey we’re doing this!’ A few shared interesting examples of different kinds …

Tim Daly: What if we have the narrative of pandemic learning loss wrong?

Parenting is a constant set of failures, small and big, only outweighed by all the love and joy. When I think about parenting moves where I would like a mulligan, technology and screens are at the top of the list. So recently in Chicago with Tim Daly we were brainstorming the trends on learning loss …

General Ops Funding > Project By Project To Get Things Done

There is a lot of reaction to the Ryan Grim Intercept article I linked the other day about the struggles at progressive organizations. Matt Yglesias sees a pipeline problem, Sarah Haider offers some ideas to escape it. Lots of other thoughtful reaction. Although education media has studiously managed to avoid covering this in education organizations, it’s …

San Francisco And Schools…Plus Narratives And Reactionary Public School Takes And Missed Opportunities On Charter Regulations

New Bellwether playbook on widespread panic impact. Sorry, scroll to the bottom for that. San Francisco recalled its DA earlier this week. Like the school board recalls we’re hearing again how this is actually all right wing funded and so forth. This. Is. San. Francisco. For more reasoned takes, Nellie Bowles has a long look in The …

Are We Turning The Corner Toward Good Political Tension In Education? Plus, Show Them The Money And Where Are The Kids?

It’s now political lore how a backbencher from Georgia started going to the well of the House of Representatives after the day’s business was concluded and howled at the moon – with only C-Span cameras as his immediate audience. Newt Gingrich parlayed this strategy into real political power in 1994, but for a long time …

Let’s Not “CRT” And “Groomer” SEL. Plus, What’s Old Is New On Sloppy Poll Trends? Fake Vax Cards, Northern Reads…More!

I’m in California for the BARR Center annual conference – first time in-person in a few years. BARR does – shhhhh – SEL work for teachers. Great results from independent evaluations. And they’re a client so all the usual disclosures and disclaimers. But, if you needed a reminder that our culture wars are dumb this …

Teachers Of Tik Tok…Big Loss For The Sector…Plus, Eduwonk Wildlife Edition

Earlier this week I wrote about or highlighted Prince, but also why tribalism is making us dumber in the policy world, the new charter regulations (politically dumb), NFTs, NCTE’s new aversion to books, pandemic closures, testing, and pensions. Lillian Lowery has passed. She was wonderful. Committed to kids, smart, effective. A good superintendent and state …