February 27, 2017

Teachers And Social Security, Pearson, DeVos And Rural, Trump Budget Numbers, Fake School Lunch Controversy, Real Bear Numbers, Dylan And Simon, More!

By Bellwether

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In The 74 Kirsten Schmitz and I take a look at teachers and Social Security and some coming debates and opportunities:

At some point, the marriage of convenience between Republicans and President Donald Trump will end. One likely cause? Irreconcilable differences about entitlement spending. And teachers should watch out that they don’t get caught in a nasty custody battle…

The bottom line is that about 40 percent of teachers aren’t covered by Social Security, this exacerbates a retirement system that isn’t working for most teachers in the first place (pdf).

Julie Squire challenges Betsy DeVos to get serious on rural schools. The answer to every question about rural education isn’t distance learning or virtual charters…

Pearson’s US higher ed struggles and its financial performance. Here’s the case for Pearson.*

In DC agencies getting budget parameters on spending for the next fiscal year. And President Trump doing an EO on HBCUs. Future of Office of Civil Rights at ED still uncertain.

On the budget, this is not where the final numbers will land. Congress has a say. But it does seem likely to force any ambitious education reform over to the tax side of the budget. That’s unfortunate because tax side initiatives generally offer less leverage on various educational problems.

Betsy DeVos is not – at least not yet – against the free-lunch program in schools. Seriously people.  She was (a) making a joke and (b) free at point of transaction versus inherently free is an issue we should discuss in a non-gotcha way (c) there is so much more going on with this administration that are real problem there is absolutely no point in creating fake outrages.

Reality check from an Ed Week reporter who must have wondered why they had to write this…

For a serious look at the school lunch issue check out this article ostensibly about West Virginia and Jamie Oliver but really about much more. This Bellwether publication includes two lunch policy ideas, one from Tom Colicchio and another from Lindsey Shute and Eric Hansen. 

Basically to settle a bar bet I did some desk research on whether there are more bears than p-12 students in Alaska. Figured I might was well share what I found. Strictly speaking the bet was grizzly/brown bears. And the answer is no overall. But, if you expand the definition of bear to include black and polar bears in addition to brown bears then the answer is yes. There are about 4700 polar bears, 30,000 brown bears, and about 100K black bears in Alaska. There are 133K p-12 public school students. I did not include any potential grizzlies in the count at all.

Here is a messy story from Florida about a teacher trying to help a troubled student.

Last week for USN I looked at the transgender bathroom guidance debate and its larger implications (big deal for affected students but you can see the story’s end now) and public lands and hook and bullet and rural voters. 

Here’s Bob Dylan and Paul Simon on Sound of Silence.

*Good time to mention again that I don’t invest in education stocks because it creates too many conflicts with my work.

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