Jed Wallace and I have a new Wonkyfolk out this morning. We cover a few issues, but in particular what Ron DeSantis and the teachers unions have in common – love of theater and they sure don’t like to take yes for an answer. Plus NAEP and civics, The Economist, more… You can also read or watch via this link. Or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This post is not written by AI, that’s been done enough. But it’s about AI. An observation and a question for you. A few weeks ago John Bailey posted a funny riff on the Good Will Hunting library card scene, but with an education flavor: I aske ..read more

Bottom line: If the Republicans can land on a message that highlights the Democratic liabilities here then the issue won’t break as cleanly to the Democrats as people assume. I’ve mentioned before that the core Democratic political problem right now is how the party is being held hostage by its activist class. It’s not a new dynamic, but is more intense in the social media era when everyone fears a Twitter pile on. The Republicans’ core problem, conversely, is ransom demands from the party’s base. Few issues illustrate that better than the debate about book “bans.” Book “banning” is one of the ..read more

Light posting, spent the week on the West Coast. Saw a Neil Young and Stephen Stills show that was pretty special. And spent a few days with the BARR Center at their conference. It’s such a high energy and hopeful event each year. WonkyFolk Jed Wallace and I released another WonkyFolk. We ask why after fumbling some layups – to mix metaphors – the Biden Administration proposed a Title IX policy that stuck the landing – to do it again – with some real nuance despite a lot of activist pushback. We discuss Chicago, New York, and the evolving legal status with religion and charter schools and what ..read more

The debate over standardized testing is an odd one. It’s highly political, often divorced from the facts. But that’s hardly unusual in education – and other issues. What strikes me, in addition to the pervasive lack of appreciation for how these assessment systems work and why, is that testing and accountability proponents generally like tests much less than their critics think they do. It’s more of a Churchill and democracy kind of sentiment. A lot of people don’t realize that the information and quality assurance yield for pennies on the dollar is the envy of most industries. And almost eve ..read more

In The 74 today Drew Pache and I take a look at school security. The defeat of the shooter at Covenant School was professional and highly competent, which is not always the case. Still, two things are true at once. The violence there could have been far worse. It was also not the best outcome, six people still died. From The 74: The police body cam videos from the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School left few unimpressed. The training and professionalism of the officers was obvious, and despite the tragic loss of life, it could have been far worse. Their actions were a ..read more

Clearly, there are not enough middle-aged guys with podcasts. So Jed Wallace and I decided to address this market gap. Jed’s popular “Charter Folk” newsletter and his interviews focus on the charter sector and issues in and around it. I’ve been a guest a few times. It’s a great medium, despite that. Now, as I mentioned recently, Jed and I are going to do an informal and semi-regular podcast on education goings on more generally. It will be us, and some guests. In our first one, just out today, we discuss some charter stuff but also the absurdity in Los Angeles and the politics in Chicago – an ..read more

It turns out some people don’t realize the Boomtown Rats hit “I Don’t Like Mondays” was born of a school shooting. When the shooter, who killed 2 and wounded 9 with a .22 rifle, was asked by a reporter why she did it she responded, “I don’t like Mondays.” The silicon chip inside her head Gets switched to overload And nobody’s gonna go to school today She’s gonna make them stay at home And daddy doesn’t understand it He always said she was good as gold And he can see no reasons ‘Cause there are no reasons What reason do you need to be shown? – I Don’t Like Mondays I was pretty young at the time ..read more

Earlier this year I took a look at how different ways of grantmaking – in particular project based funding –  might be a contributing factor to the ongoing meltdowns at progressive organizations. And more recently a look at philanthropy and risk. In both cases, some of the most interesting responses came from people inside philanthropy – blink three times if you’re being held against your will. So I want to share a third and related observation. In an effort to improve diversity in the education sector we may be hindering effective operations of non-profits more than helping. Some people ..read more

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 the piece’s thesis perfectly. OK, I don’t think it’s too hot per se, but I do think it has some problems. It violates what we call around Bellwether the “Cannon Rule.” That’s shorthand for present arguments in ways that those holding them ..read more

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