[Cross-posted at Schools Matter.] This begins a series of readings concerned with the articles and images found in the October Atlantic Monthly which promote the “Reform Agenda” of both conservatives and liberals (as power has no pure…
Browsing Category Education
Discipline and Punish
Maybe you’re not 44 and so are not conversant with the movie Reality Bites (its genesis and presentation 20 years past), but I am. The down-and-out 20-something “losers” (heed my punctuation, please) in that film…
Raising Workers for Poverty’s Sake!
Why do “philanthropists” want to “deliver on the American promise of equal opportunity by working to attack the achievement gap that takes root early in life and puts children in poverty at great disadvantage?” (Educare…
Controlling Signs
Applicable in any century, be it 19th, 20th or 21st (or 21st BCE)–Language controls behavior. *** If Professor Booth goes into his usual coffee shop to get his morning coffee, and says to the waiter,…
Common Core Is Authority On Steroids
Peg with Pen wrote yesterday about a product offered by the designer of Common Core, David Coleman (more from me on that here, “Occupy Common Core Standards“). I recently had the unfortunate opportunity to examine…
Economics and Kindergarten
I would like to offer the following as a critical warm-up to the following “economics” article from the Times (from 2010) about the “value” of the Kindergarten experience. First, be clear, I think these early…
Minecraft, Or The Play’s the (Latest and Last) Thing
UPDATE: A Literary Addendum I know a boy who plays Minecraft somewhat as if it were his quest to reach the nirvana state that comes of internalizing the Jesus Prayer. I suppose he substitutes “Steve”…
The Wages of Progress…
People get interested and involved in issues and dilemmas that primarily affect them personally, physically, specifically. I get that. Me too. Yo tambien. However, it seems to me that a particular injustice or unfairness normally…
Cut from the Corporate Kloth–Preferring KIPP Failure Over TPS Success
NOTE: A small section of this article originally mistook the KIPP Indy school with KIPP’s school in Gary. This has been corrected. UPDATE: As this Doug Martin story broke, word came down that a federal…
Buying Mayor Ballard: More Truth About the Project School Closing
In my last piece, The Truth about the Project School Closing: The Indiana Corporate School Complex,” I noted how Indy mayor Greg Ballard was promoting a school privatizing movement full of crony capitalism, propaganda, and…