Desegregation history
Eduwonkette made me wince a few weeks ago with her entry, Did School Integration Really Do Much Good? She quoted a relatively new economic study using Louisiana, but there’s a fairly sizable literature on this already, including classic works by Roz Mickelson and Jennifer Hochschild, among many many others. Yes, there is evidence of cognitive […]
A thoughtful debate on curriculum
One of the greatest sins of the Joel Klein administration is engaging in Stupid Ed Tricks that distract Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch from thoughtful debate on Bridging Differences, such as the discussion they have been engaged in recently on curriculum: What Should Happen in Our Houses of Learning? (Ravitch) A Marshall Plan for Teaching […]
Interstices
The semester has ended, the graduation I attended is over, the legislative session has finished, and the Crazy May events (multiple birthdays, recitals, concerts, etc.) have not yet begun. I had some bureaucratic stuff to do over the weekend that would have been Very Nice to have done a week earlier, so I celebrated the […]
Sins die
Sine die* is one of the few Latin expressions known or used in the Florida statehouse, and it marks the end of a session (technically adjourning indefinitely). 6pm EDT was the scheduled close, and when the traditional handkerchief dropped a few minutes afterwards, the legislature had wreaked havoc on the state budget, blown apart the […]
The rest of the story on the excessed teacher controversy
I had been wondering what else was going on with the controversy over the excessed teacher pool in New York City. The politics here just seemed as if something was missing. Leo Casey calls it a naked political power play and lays out UFT’s perspective, along with a trail of specifics. The core of the […]