My son is friends with a girl who grew up in the foster care system. Her mother left when she was a toddler. Then her dad died of a drug overdose. In front of her. We have known her only a short time, since a family adopted her at age 15.
She was at our apartment when Z was taking a practice SAT math test. She had not heard of the SAT. She said her sister did not take it. But the friend didn’t want to sit around while Z took it, so she joined him. Read more
The people who are most unhappy with public schools in the US are people without children. Parents, it turns out, report that their schools are great. Translation: school is such a sacred form of free childcare that parents systematically mix up causation and correlation in order to keep believing that school is okay. Read more
Parents are not doing Zoom school. They think it’s stupid. Yet teachers have been doing school day after day like it’s essential. A survey by Fishbowl reveals that the majority of professionals prefer to continue working from home. Except K-12 teachers. They prefer going back to working at school.
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Every time I read an article about public school, I assume I’ll run into research from people who have a conflict of interest. Here are three studies that made me nuts this week. Read more
I get hopeful every time I see people pushing back on schools. I think schools have way too much power in our society and I’m shocked by how many parents put up with it. And right now the group of parents pushing back the hardest are football parents. Read more
Massachusetts public schools are widely known to be the best in the country. This doesn’t mean that school is good. It means that Massachusetts keeps trying new things. But also it means that Massachusetts starts with the state with the highest percentage of people with advanced degrees. And the highest number of universities per capita, feeding bright-eyed, bushy-tailed undergrads into the system. Read more
I saw this op-ed in the New York Times titled: The Good News About Educational Inequalities. The article is so misguided and irresponsible that I have to address it. Read more
I am struck by the huge amount of research that shows that the school kids attend has no effect on whether a kid gets out of poverty. Read more
I am fascinated by yesterday’s well-organized walk-out in Boston public schools.
What would happen if all the high school students in the nation refused to go to school? It’s logical that they would not want to go to school. They are infantilized. High school is pretty much living hell for most kids. Read more
Kids in poverty are behind before they get to school, which means the problems we need to fix are not problems with school. Read more