A couple of weeks back I read an article in Reason by Emma Camp, More States Are Using Science-Backed Reading Instruction. It Shouldn’t Have Taken This Long., touting “science of reading” instruction methods, which stress training in phonics—mapping letters to sounds—as opposed to “balanced literacy”, aka “whole language”, aka “three cueing”, which, Emma says, was…
Tag: education
Randi Weingarten doesn’t hate black children. She just doesn’t give a damn about them.
Throughout the COVID years, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has had one solution to the difficulties of operating schools during the worst epidemic in a century: Shut ‘em down! Shut ‘em down! How has that affected the kids? Well, the results are in, and they’re uglier than Alan Vanneman on a…
CRT v. Anti-CRT: Wait, Wait! You’re BOTH Right! Occasionally.
OCTOBER 6, 2022 UPDATE: In the course of this report—somewhere in the middle—I discuss crime data from the FBI. I should have pointed out that these data are estimates rather than complete tallies. We don’t know, for example, that there were 10,440 homicides in the U.S. in 2020, although the FBI says we do. I…
Betsy DeVos couldn’t destroy America’s public schools. But Randi Weingarten can.
Yeah, you remember sweet Betsy from Holland, Michigan, the billionaire busybody who came to Washington, DC as secretary of education to serve Jesus Christ and Donald Trump, and not coincidentally wreck the American public school system? Well, sweet Betsy didn’t make much headway with her scheme, but Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of…
President Biden proposes a $2.3 trillion infrastructure package. What could go wrong? Well, I can think of a few things.
Sure I can. For example, suppose we spend that $2,300,000,000,000 and end up with 1,000,000+ $2,000,000 bike shelters, like the one at the East Falls Church, Va. Metro station. Since that shed, the time that I visited it, was only utilized to, you know, 2% capacity, a lot of people—mostly Republicans, of course—might think we…
David Brooks writes a good column. I did not see this coming!
Yeah, not only does shit happen, sometimes amazing shit happens. The amazing shit in question is this post by Big Dave, on whose unprotected dome have I poured unrelenting ridicule for lo these many years. Dave’s column, titled “The Meritocracy Is Ripping America Apart”, subtitled “How savage exclusion tears the social fabric”, is, mercifully, not…
How to lie with statistics, Jennifer Rubin edition
Anyone who has read all my posts on Washpost opinion gal Jennifer Rubin would probably tell me to shut the fuck up. But this one’s different, because I agree with Jennie yet dispute her tactics. Jennie’s post of contention, “Graham sums up how stupid the GOP has become”, is an extended poke at South Carolina…
A Limo at Risk, Part I: A skeptical view of American education reform, 1983-2017
(Author’s note: In the spring of 1996 I began to work as an editor/writer for a newly created non-profit called the “Education Statistics Services Institute,” whose sole function was to support the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education. I was assigned work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress,…