A lot of blogging about the Republican convention via The 74 and Bellwether. A lot of good content from a variety of folks. Here’s my take on Donald Trump Jr. and reformers.
Kate Zernike on Governor Pence’s education record. Punchline, he’s moved the ball on some issues, but also shown a real willingness to play politics with education, too. Michael Holzman on the lack of focus on equity given the irony of where the conventions are being held this year.
What a sorry state of affairs when a university has to pass on hosting a presidential debate because of the costs of security.
Bonnie O’Keefe on whether online charters are less outlier problem and more broader indicator of what ails public education. What’s happening on tenure in jobs?
Klein and Barber on nine education policy plays (pdf).
Rhode Island charter bill, from the ProJo:
…it is disappointing that Rhode Island politicians always seem so willing to “compromise” with the future of black and Hispanic children, who have very little political clout at the State House.
…Blackstone Valley Prep has given the lie to the longstanding argument that public education cannot effectively reach many students who come from great poverty and troubled homes. The mayoral academies, a tiny percentage of the state’s public schools, have demonstrated that such students need not be condemned to failure, and that there is a way to inspire and educate them. Their success makes a strong argument that traditional schools must change with the times – which may explain the fierce hostility from some quarters to mayoral academies.
Pragmatism and compromise in politics are important. But some things are worth fighting for. Bringing minority students into the mainstream through public education — our state’s biggest civil rights challenge — is one of them. Rhode Island will never energize its economy until its leaders are willing to fight, and fight again, for education that works best for students.
Barone v. Polikoff on growth. Part 1 here.
Today in finding yourself cross pressured: SPLC says it’s really not trying to close MS charter schools. OK, in that case I’d hate to see what it looks like then when they decide to try close them.
The White House on student debt.
This article about the Ghostbusters/Twitter harassment makes a broader point germane to education:
It speaks, more importantly, to the derailment of the important task of challenging PC. Tragically, for those of us who want to prick PC from a genuinely liberal and pro-autonomy perspective, the anti-PC mantle has in recent months been co-opted by the new right, or the alt-right, as some call them. These lovers of Trump (they call him ‘daddy’) and conspiracy theorists about feminism (whose wicked influence they spy everywhere) have turned being anti-PC from a decent, progressive position into an infantile, pathological, Tourette’s-style desire to scream offensive words out loud, like the seven-year-old who’s just discovered the thrill that comes with saying ‘f**k’.
Their response to new and mad PC rules on how to talk about race and gender is not to criticise them dispassionately, or point out that it’s ironically pretty racist and sexist to suggest black people and women need protection from offensive words; no, it’s to say the offensive words, to say the N-word, as loudly as possible, and ideally to a black person. In the past, serious liberals opposed bans on the right of neo-fascists to march in the streets or distribute their literature by calling for political freedom for all. They didn’t become neo-fascists just to wind up officialdom. Yet bizarrely, that’s what the alt-right does: instead of launching grown-up critiques of the censorship of hate, they embrace hate; they become hateful; they come to personify the hate whose expression is being restricted. People ban Nazis, so they become Nazis. It’s crazy. It’s a temper tantrum, not liberalism.
What is most striking is how much this alt-right shares in common with the lefty SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) it claims to hate. Both are fuelled by the politics of victimhood: SJWs claim a massive culture of misogyny is ruining their lives; alt-righters insist a feminist conspiracy is destroying theirs. Both are mean: peruse the blogs or tweets of any vocal alt-right or SJW and you’ll be struck by their disgust for anyone who disagrees with them. And both are censorious. Don’t be fooled by the alt-right’s freedom-lovin’ postures. They’re just as keen as SJWs to slam and ultimately end culture that offends them, whether it’s Beyonce doing a Black Power dance at the Super Bowl or Ghostbusters with four women in it.
Serious right-wingers and left-wingers should be worried about all this stuff. The alt-right is giving the right a bad name, while SJWs threaten to empty left-wing politics of its love for liberty and its trust in people to govern their own lives without needing official assistance all the time. They’re turning the left-right clash into a spiteful, foul-mouthed, libellous catfight, and people like Ms Jones are being caught in the crossfire in the most disgusting way.
