Disappointing debate over teacher unions
I wish I could say I had learned something from the education globule’s recent debate over the role of teacher unions, but I haven’t. When the apparent tail end of the discussion ends with a claim that “unions… are tenacious and need to be defeated, over and over and over again if reform is to […]
OCD in collaboration
I spent some time this afternoon working with colleagues in a teaching-like context (planning a weeklong summer workshop), and while we had talked about a number of possible ways to run the week, it wasn’t until one of us brought in a grid of the week divided into days and hours that we started to […]
The three-year degree already exists
Yesterday’s Washington Post article on the three-year degree argument skimmed over what most such proposals ignore: there already is a three-year degree, and I don’t mean the small number of three-year degree options that have largely failed to attract students. I mean the way that students currently speed up their college education: AP classes and […]
U.S. Secretary of Mixed Metaphors
“Investing in the status quo is not going to move the ball down the field,” said Arne Duncan in discussing California education, and I wince. This is a Secretary of Education who thinks “incent” is a word, and when asked yesterday what happens when he plays the president in basketball, he answered, Everyone asks me […]
Shamless book plug in response to Kevin Carey
Kevin Carey has a very interesting personal history of school funding reform in Indiana, and then later writes that maybe he should have written differently, without “lie” as a verb. In retrospect, titling that post “Lie To Me” and talking about hiding information from parents was a bad idea–as is blogging at 4 AM after […]