I will leave to others the task of debating the actual educational conditions of Success Academy Charter Schools, as discussed in this deep, disturbing profile in the New York Times. I will further let others debate the actual meaning of standardized testing and the paucity of evidence that constant testing actually generates superior educational outcomes. I […]
Continue reading →I was unsatisfied with my piece in response to Paul Campos today, so I took to Medium to write a rundown of the current condition of college as defined by its past this morning. Check it out.
Continue reading →Here Paul F. Campos, a law professor in the University of Colorado system, shows how not to write about data and policy. 1. He cites essentially none of his data. There’s nothing to evaluate here because there’s no way to tell where he’s getting his numbers from. Most of his data gets no citation at […]
Continue reading →So I could go on at length about this hatchet job about me in Tablet, but there’s really not much point: almost nothing that John-Paul Pagano writes has anything to do with what I actually believe or what I’ve actually argued. The essay is simply one misrepresentation after another, a string of deliberate misreadings and strawman […]
Continue reading →It will probably not surprise you to learn that I really love this Alana Massey piece on why chill is dumb and destructive and shitty. It’s important and funny and so well written. Massey is writing from the perspective of social life and relationships, which is a very good place to write from. I have […]
Continue reading →I am not, as you’re aware if you’re reading this, a fan of the perpetual outrage cycle over verbal gaffes and imperfect vocabulary which has replaced politics for the contemporary American left. Because I think that human beings make mistakes; because I think that in any offense, you have to take into account intent to harm; because […]
Continue reading →I’m drawing close to completing and defending my dissertation. I’m going to write up some stuff about it soon, as I genuinely think there’s some interesting things for people who are interested in educational policy in there. (You may roll your eyes if you choose.) Briefly, though, I want to say a quick word about […]
Continue reading →Last week I wrote a long post on what I see as a dangerous trend in my field’s focus, away from the traditional prose instruction that institutions and policymakers still see as valuable, and towards increasingly abstruse and disconnected subjects in critical pedagogy, pop culture, theory, and digital abstraction. I find these areas to be engaging and generative, […]
Continue reading →I have two memories tonight, both from Wilbert Snow School, my childhood school, my childhood home. In the first, it was a typical day on the blacktop, which means it could have been pretty much any grade, K-5. In those days the school was an actual campus; there was a main building with the office, […]
Continue reading →Some people will no doubt ding me for being positively quoted in this National Review piece about campus speech codes. That sort of thing never really bothers me; I said what I said on Twitter about the chilling effect of current campus speech norms and I stand by it. Guilt by association doesn’t move me. No, the […]
Continue reading →