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 of grant making methods. And that’s all great. I wrote, Some funders are obviously doing this – in the political and practice space. But it’s far from the norm. This summarizes a more common refrain, a former funder wrote, Great piece on risk and philanthropy.  It’s really scary how con ..read more

I was recently having lunch with a friend, who was a senior hand in the Carter White House. We were noting that in those days if you had predicted there would be a TV network where much of the guest talent was former military, CIA and other spooky types, FBI, and assorted other national security players and the audience lapping it up would be mostly Democrats you’d be laughed at. You’d be ridiculed even more if you then added that when the Russians invaded a sovereign nation many Republicans and conservatives would advocate against supporting efforts to counter Russian military force. Yet here ..read more

A few months ago I noted that you can’t really divorce the concern about meltdowns at progressive non-profits from the structure of prevalent models of funding. A lot of feedback on that one, basically everyone except the Jacobins who thrill to this theater agreed with the broad idea that funding should allow leaders to lead. Implicit is the idea that you’ll lead and be accountable to funders and whatever other governance arrangement you operate in. So here’s another idea about philanthropy, and one that at least to certain ears will sound more crazy: I’d like to see more unaccountable philant ..read more

I was on a Zoom a few months ago, Paul Vallas was on as well. It wasn’t political or Chicago focused, more about education policy in general. But of course someone asked him how he saw his race. At this point he wasn’t a front runner but Vallas laid out how he saw things and his odds, which he forecasted as pretty good for making the runoff. A few people privately discounted that. But obviously turns out Paul was right. More here. Say what you want about Vallas who has led schools in Chicago and Louisiana among other roles – and people say plenty – he does not check his brain or fall in with e ..read more

The other night my daughter and I were walking through Washington DC, after dinner on our way to the Warner Theater to see Tedeschi Trucks Band – her first time. They put on a great show and she was hooked from the jump, that’s a post for another time. Part of our stroll took us past Ford’s Theater and we talked for a bit about the counterfactual of what might have happened had that night had gone differently? It’s amazing to me, and a worrying sign, that idiots want to take Lincoln’s name off schools. He’s arguably the best we’ve had, certainly in the small top tier. Source LOC This President ..read more

Steve Rees is an education polymath. I have vintage pictures he took of Jerry Garcia and Alan Ginsburg in 1960s California. His photography appeared in the recent Bill Graham retrospective and in documentaries about the Grateful Dead. Steve once gave me a Warlocks poster. He’s also a fine fly fisherman. And I should also mention he’s been a leader on education data, how to use it, think about it, communicate about it – long before data took on some prominence in education. Today, a guest post by Steve about his new book, with Jill Wynns, about data, Mismeasuring Schools’ Vital Signs. Here’s S ..read more

Greetings! Carnival week really gets going in New Orleans this week – they even close the schools, something I support. (But don’t take school attendance advice from me…although I’d argue with longer school year the flexibility for teachers and students would be powerful). This picture has almost nothing to do with this post but it’s a fun time of year. Anyhow, today, below are a few quick items not not long enough for a standalone post and several open edujobs at DSST, Advance Illinois, and Bellwether. Safetyism. People can hold two ideas in their heads at the same time. Even if they disagree ..read more

Last month we put out a new analysis at Bellwether, Common Ground*, about the landscape the sector is operating in. I wrote a short post about it here. We identified six common themes we are seeing across a range of issues, from DEI to school enrollment. One that warrants more attention in my view is the pervasive definitional confusion that is distorting educational debates today and causing people to talk past one another. There are real divides, yes, but there is also more common ground than people realize. For instance, to use two hot-button issues that are in the news a lot lately, when ..read more

Kris Amundson is a former Democratic state legislator in Virginia, she’s been a school board member in Fairfax County, and she led NASBE as its CEO. Her book on the pandemic and education was a good look at that mess and on the holiday book list. She’s currently a consultant – and a good savvy advisor for entities navigating today’s tortuous education politics. In a recent conversation she was sharing an account of some time she’d recently spent in Honduras – she spends a fair amount of time in Central America – and I said, that’s interesting, would you write up? She graciously did. Enjoy ..read more

Thoughtful deep dive in The Times on transgender youth and when it’s appropriate for schools to withhold information from parents. Notably, The Times seems to be breaking the taboo that this whole thing is just conservatives whipping up an issue. I wrote about this a few months ago – short version I think it’s only OK to conceal things K-12 schools are doing with students from parents when safety is involved and then only until the situation can be stabilized. There is a lot more concern about this idea that it’s ok to cut parents out among clinicians than activists. The Times talks with Eric ..read more