George Miller press conference
I’m listening right now to California Rep. George Miller’s press conference previewing his NCLB reauthorization bill. My first impression is that he’s overpromising. (He’s also talking too quickly, but his audience is a group of reporters, and the faster he talks, the more questions they can ask.) Here come the questions, reported here as topics and […]
Mundane faculty sadism
I’m going to borrow a term from pop marital therapy author David Schnarch, compare it to sibling experiences and literary analysis, and then see if the principle applies to professional relationships in higher ed. To Schnarch, couples’ relationships are a pressure-cooker within which the individuals (should) develop. To Schnarch, this pressure-cooker environment is an inevitable by-product […]
Democracy, justice, and teaching
There’s been a fascinating discussion developing in response to Aaron Schutz’s review of Jeannie Oakes and John Rogers’s Learning Power: Organizing for Education and Justice (2006). Sometimes comment threads develop in a few hours. This one is still growing after a few months.
Stiff spats over charter schools
Reading Leo Casey’s complaint about anti-union charter schools named after Cesar Chavez, including his rebuttal to Andy Rotherham’s comment, and then Sara Mead’s response, plus Joe Williams’ dismissal of Casey’s interpretation of a blurb in the Fordham Gadfly that complains about teachers unions wanting to organize charter schools, I feel as if I’m hearing one of those […]
Loss of the Weekly World News
It’s true, dear readers. The Weekly World News is ceasing publication at the end of August. (Hat tip.) There goes the end of the great litany of newspaper readership analyses (which varies by country): The Washington Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they […]