It’s Friday, and again no fish pictures! There are some in the queue but it’s been busy around here. One link at the bottom and whiskey/education/congress expert Kevin Kosar goes fishing all the time.
If you’re going to come after Chad Aldeman, especially on pension policy, get your facts straight first.
Underneath the current craziness, I think this is something I think most people get – the future of America is nonwhite and that’s a good thing for our shared prosperity. But good public schools will play a key role in what this looks like and so far we’re not there yet.
Stay classy Boston! Massachusetts Teachers Association refuses to congratulate the national teacher of the year because she teaches in a public charter school. You don’t have to go to a museum to see a dinosaur.
Harold Meyerson asks why billionaires care about public charter schools. At one level this is the same old, billionaires reforming criminal justice policy, addressing climate change, and advocating better health care policy = enlightened, noble even. Billionaires trying to help families have better schooling options = misguided, or worse. Yet many of us – non-billionaires, of course – support all of those things.
Worth a read, and the question Meyerson raises is what’s the best way to attack the various problems of American life. It’s certainly a fair one, but hard to argue education isn’t a contributor to our structural problems when you look at how the system work. And hard to argue there aren’t multiple problems causing structural inequality today so it’s easy to criticize people for choosing the “wrong” one (usually the one your friends are on the other side of). But the question of Walmart is a more complicated one than people generally acknowledge. Here’s Jason Furman, President Obama’s former top economic aide, on that (pdf).
In The Times David Leondhart on economic diversity – or the lack of it – in higher education. Important column.
Here’s Tom Kane and Randi Weingarten on ESSA policy. And here’s Paul Hill and Terry Ryan on rural charter schools. The summer issue of Education Next is out now.
A lot of people are unaware of the interesting work Goodwill does on education. NPR takes a look here.
Check out Angaleena Presley’s “High School.” Fat fish from Idaho.
