When my daughters were pre-teens they came home from school one day alarmed. During a lesson on climate change the teacher or some part of the lesson, it was never quite clear, had basically stated that absent radical attention to warming there would be little hope for survivability on earth after 2030. This was during peak Thunberg-mania. I remember having a few thoughts. First, I’m someone deeply concerned about climate change but this isn’t what the evidence shows and is a bananas lesson. But also, even assuming this is what the evidence convincingly shows, these are really young kids, what ..read more

Totally Incredible Greetings from Ohio. I’m out here with family in the path of totality because eclipses are an amazing thing to experience and I’ll go out of my way to experience one. Totality and standing inside of Stonehenge one evening at sunset are the two experiences I’ve had where time does feel like it’s moving differently. I hope you are somewhere you can experience it. (I also visited Neil Armstrong’s childhood home, which was cool to see. I’m a nerd). Alas, not everyone feels that way and some schools are doing the hide the kids thing again. I wrote about this back in 2017 for U.S ..read more

What’s something the world might not need? How about a live recording of WonkyFolk where Jed and I do it as a keynote and take questions? Probably. We did it anyway. Last month we went to Phoenix and helped keynote a Charter School Growth fund summit with a great group from across the country. You can listen below. We had an audio issue the first few minutes. There is a bit of cross talk/music with the techs, but it’s only for the first minute or so. Otherwise the meat of the discussion is there. We screwed up a question at the end from a fantastic New Orleans charter school leader because we ..read more

ICYMI earlier in the week I wrote about why, despite the stridency about non-profit and for-profit status, tax status actually doesn’t matter a lot in key ways. Last week I took a look at AI and suggested that while bias is an issue given how these models work, we shouldn’t over-index on it. Google over-indexed on it. Nellie Bowles has a good take on that. If you missed our Science of Reading webinar based on this new Bellwether report, it’s here: My team, really working hard to get the most awkward screen grabs. Read The Room Also last week, I sat down with Baltimore City Public Schools CEO ..read more

There is a sort of truism in the education world that non-profit means white hat* and for-profit means you should be skeptical or something stronger. And because Bellwether is a non-profit it would be in my interest to perpetuate that notion. Except it’s wrong and not at all useful. Not-for-profit and for-profit are just corporate structures. Those structures matter, for instance, legally, to some aspects of operations, to compensation, and to taxes related to various activities. (And there are different classifications of non-profits, churches, unions, political organizations, charities, etc ..read more

I haven’t written a lot about AI here at Eduwonk. And where I have it’s more questions than answers. That’s where we are on the tech right now. And I haven’t done that thing where I have AI write the post and that’s the big reveal. AI did not write this. My colleagues Amy Chen Kulesa and Alex Spurrier recently wrote a great piece -again, actually wrote it – about AI and schools for Fordham. AI will impact the education sector, as it will most walks of life, and it will over-promise and under-deliver. That’s always a safe bet. Yet the velocity around AI is intense right now. Here are a few thi ..read more

ICYMI last Friday, North Dakota’s Kirsten Baesler and I discussed teacher shortages and education politics on a Linkedin video chat. Don’t Teacher Eval Science of Reading Out today from Bellwether here’s a look at some Science of Reading pitfalls and opportunities. Basically, my colleagues and I look at how can SOR advocates learn from rather than repeat past reform missteps. Also includes a lot of history on reading instruction and reading politics. Key points: Reading is vital for academic and life outcomes — and early reading is especially important.  The evidence base on what it tak ..read more

ICYMI – the 2024 Eduwonk In and Out list is here. Something for everyone to love and hate. Tim Daly is going deep on the whole Finland education marketing play. We’ve discussed that a few times around here. And don’t say you were not warned. Coming Attractions In spring 1997, the Red River flooded in North Dakota (as well as parts of Canada and Minnesota). The devastation was particularly intense in Grand Forks. Prom was out of the question for area high schools until they decided to host a joint prom in a hanger at the Air Force base there. Soul Asylum showed up to play! They played a great s ..read more

It’s the first week of January so here’s the In and Out list (2023 here and 2022 here). It’s unscientific, it’s impressionistic, and it’s informed by your emails so keep sending them. Happy New Year. Out In Dress Codes Gender stereotypes Networks Hubs Philanthropic dollars in education Philanthropic commitment to education Race-based affirmative action Essays and supplemental questions Covid dollars Fiscal cliffs Governance Donors Ed tech will transform how we learn AI will transform how we learn Middlemen Brandon Johnson Substantive teacher strikes Performative teacher st ..read more

ICYMI here’s the Eduwonk holiday book (and gift) list. For the last WonkyFolk of the year Jed and I sat down with Nina Rees, outgoing CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. It’s an interesting conversation about the sector, its politics, what Nina has learned, and what’s next. She also shares her own story at the end. In my view, Nina did a masterful job navigating a complicated set of cross-pressures for her organization and the charter sector. On any given day she was catching flack for being too hard-edged or for not being collaborative enough. Nina is an institutionalist ..read more