Happy Monday the 13th! I hope you have good luck today. Here are a few of the stories and trends that passed across our desk this week:
Scales and schools: How do well-meaning reformers keep goofing? Why do they insist on “scaling up” good schools when it never works?
- How school scaling happens. Peter Greene analyzes AltSchool’s predictable metamorphosis.
- What’s wrong with scaling “Success?” Megan Erickson profiles Eva Moskowitz in The Nation.
- Best line: “The worst fate for a conservative is to be dependent on the state. The worst fate for a liberal is to be without opportunity. These two competing ideologies have informed a century of tinkering within American education.”
- One school that refuses to “scale up,” from Larry Cuban.
- ILYBYGTH: Where the “scale” pressure comes from, and why it’s bad.
Red Dynamite: At Righting America at the Creation Museum, Carl Weinberg untangles the connections between creationism and anti-communism.
Education culture-war news from the midterm elections: School board vote in Colorado dings vouchers.
Ahhh…Thanksgiving. The holiday to gather around a table and yell culture-war insults at our friends and family. At 3 Quarks Daily, Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse reflect on “familial angst” on Turkey Day.
Why are college students so touchy about free speech? As reported by IHE, a new survey says it’s because they’re Americans.
Arica Coleman looks at the career of neo-confederacy in American textbooks, at Time.
What’s wrong with charter schools? The Progressive examines the debates in North Carolina.
…and what’s wrong with “personalized learning?” EdWeek listens to three critics.
John Oliver takes on Ken Ham. Should Kentucky’s Ark Encounter receive tax incentives?
I Love You but You're Going to Hell 