About
The title of this blog is inspired by the following excerpt from this blog post by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution:On another point, as I get older, I tend to view "family structure which encourages...
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Special Education Stimulus Spending
Last year's stimulus legislation (American Recovery and Recovery Act of 2009, a/k/a "ARRA") provides a one-time boost (to be spent for the 2009-10 and 2010-2011 school years) in federal funding for...
View ArticleEuclid, Newton and Adam Smith
I missed the hubbub over the piece by Mark Slouka in Harper’s last fall (“Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school”), but came to it after reading a few mentions of it recently. Its title...
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Virtual schools, students with IEPs, and Wisconsin open enrollment
Virtual schooling can be an educational choice with particular benefits for some students with disabilities. The recent study "Serving Students with Disabilities in State-level Virtual K-12 Public...
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Reading Recovery, parents and experts
Debate has been joined (after a fashion) over Reading Recovery on the Learning & Reading Disabilities blog and the Wrightslaw site. In two recent posts ("Should I Stop My Child's School from Using...
View ArticleRace to the Top snapshots
In anticipation of the first-round Race to the Top finalists being announced this week, here's an assortment of data points which may be of interest (without being too much like the blind men patting...
View ArticleSchool budget sunshine
It's school budget time, and our district has invited public input on budget issues at public sessions later this month and next month. Because the district already possesses the taxing authority to...
View ArticleDetroit
I spent my 8th grade summer in Detroit. We stayed with my paternal grandmother. She was what some might call "a character," but I remember her as petite, fearsome, sui generis: lecturing my brothers on...
View ArticleVirtual charter school admissions for students with disabilities in Wisconsin
Families of students with IEPs who have applied for open enrollment to a Wisconsin virtual charter school for the 2010-11 school year will likely have received their notices of approval or denial by...
View ArticleFlannery O'Connor on teaching fiction
Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning, but that is a part of the problem with which I am not equipped to deal. The devil of Educationism that...
View ArticleTeacher appreciation
What makes a teacher? I don't have any pixels to scatter on the whys and wherefores of that question that could possibly improve on anything anyone's said before. I do reflect often, though, on that...
View ArticleNew Wisconsin law on school safety plans, pupil records and school bullying
Wednesday of the fourth week of September is now "Bullying Awareness Day" in Wisconsin, thanks to the new law on school safety plans, pupil records and school bullying (2009 Wisconsin Act 309) signed...
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Old school
I said, "Dad, I'm so excited about my studies at Brown. I think I'm going to major in philosophy." So my father slowly turned the car and put it off to the side of the road—he looked back at me and...
View ArticleMeasures for measures
O, it is excellentTo have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannousTo use it like a giant. (Measure for Measure, II.ii.133)So…as of this writing more than half the states have been persuaded to sign on...
View ArticleKey student performance measures (Madison School District)
The Student Achievement and Performance Monitoring Committee of the Madison school board met last Monday to review “key student performance measures” presented by district administration, centering...
View ArticleNeed to read
The reading experts and government leaders on Wisconsin's "Read to Lead" task force are taking a close look at student reading achievement in Wisconsin schools. The meetings of the task force are open...
View ArticleReader leaders
Wisconsin's "Read to Lead" Task Force convened for its second meeting last month to address teacher training and reading interventions. Here's an excellent debrief (via School Information System) from...
View ArticleChesterton on Dickens on education
It is singular that Dickens, who was not only a radical and a social reformer, but one who would have been particularly concerned to maintain the principle of modern popular education, should...
View ArticleFollow the leader
Wisconsin's "Read to Lead" Task Force had its fourth meeting on July 29, 2011 at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation (a video of the meeting is available, thanks to coverage by WisconsinEye). The...
View ArticleLouis Moreau Gottschalk on education
Those favored by fortune can educate themselves in all countries: and it is for that reason that the American thinkers did not dedicate their cares to the aristocratic element of society, but rather to...
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