Peter Greene

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Articles

Just How Bad Is the ‘Educational Choice’ Bill in Congress that Trump Is Expected to Support?

Dec 19, 2024 | progressive.org | Peter Greene

For years, a powerful faction of political conservatives has pushed for creating a federal school voucher program alongside the many state-level voucher programs that have recently passed. During her tenure as U.S. Secretary of Education during Donald Trump’s first presidential administration, Betsy DeVos advocated for creating a federal voucher program, but she was not able to successfully launch it.
Curmudgucation: Computers And Defective Children

Dec 9, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

Kristen DiCerbo is the "chief learning officer" at Khan Academy, the hot new ed tech firm that is using computer programs to replicate some of the oldest problematic behavior in the educational universe. "If bringing AI into the classroom is a marathon," asserts DiCerbo in a recent article, "we’re 250 yards into this." I would argue that's a generous assessment. See, Khan is one of the outfits betting on AI tutoring. But we can already see the problems, all completely predictable, emerging.
Curmudgucation: Even in a Red Wave, Voters Reject School Vouchers

Nov 26, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

As has often been noted, school vouchers have never survived being put to a vote. Despite all the noise voucherphiles make about how beloved school choice is among the people, when you actually ask voters if they want vouchers, they say no. Three states tested that record in this election, and the voters said no yet again. Colorado tried to amend the state constitution to put in place a right to school choice.
Curmudgucation: AZ: Fighting For Less Accountability for Taxpayer Funds

Nov 6, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

The Goldwater Institute, an , has filed suit against the state because it thinks there are too many rules attached to the state's voucher program. Parents using the education savings account money shouldn't have to show that they've used the taxpayers' dollars for something educational. This is a battle that is a predictable crossroads on vouchers' path to their ultimate destination, and it deserves our attention for that reason.
Curmudgucation: Why Do State Report Cards Stink

Oct 31, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

Morgan Polikoff (USC Rosier School of Education, FutureEd) and some folks at the reformy Center for Reinventing Public Education along with the Data Quality Campaign wanted to put together a report on what state report card sites had to say about pandemic learning loss trajectories. What they found is what lots of us could have told them-- the state school report card sites kind of stink. The report itself is pretty brief. Do state sites provide longitudinal data?
Curmudgucation: Are Grade Level Texts the Magical Cure? (The Ghost of Common Core)

Oct 23, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

At The Hechinger Report, Suzanne Simons wants to complain about English Language Arts instruction in middle and high schools. It's a familiar kind of mess, but I promise a tiny twist at the end, which might almost make up for the length. Simons is the Chief Literacy and Languages Officer at Carnegie Learning.
Curmudgucation: Cato's Failed Argument Against Public School

Oct 11, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

Colleen Hroncinch of Cato Institute's Center for Education Freedom tried this week to plug one of the pro-public education arguments that the Libertarian think tank runs up against when pushing choice. Do public schools serve everyone, she asks. She does not make a convincing case for her answer. For starters, it defies logic to think one provider of any service could “serve everyone”—or at least, serve everyone well. The fallacy here is that public education comes from "one provider." It does not.
Curmudgucation: Is This a Case for Standardized Testing?

Sep 27, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

For some folks, love for the Big Standardized Test just never dies. If anything, fears that the pandemess would squelch the BS Test gave testophiles an extra shot to the heart. Over at the Fordham Institute, Victoria McDougald kicked off the month by taking a shot at making the 2024 case for the BS Test. McDougald is not an educator, but a policy maven, with years logged at the Gates Foundation. So how'd she do? Let's see what the current state of the argument is.
Curmudgucation: How Khan Academy (and Others) Fudged Their Research

Sep 13, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

Computer tutoring is the hot thing, and the big players have all sorts of sexy research numbers to back them up. Are the numbers bunk? They sure are. I'll warn you--this is spun from an article by Laurence Holt, a guy who has worked with NewSchools Venture Fund, Amplify, and, currently, XQ. But most of my readers don't also read Education Next, where the piece appeared in April. But his point is too important to ignore.
Curmudgucation: Universal Vouchers and Privatization

Aug 22, 2024 | nepc.colorado.edu | YearBy Year |Peter Greene

A shift in Florida is being covered, but I'm not sure many folks really understand what's happening. Politico reported that Florida school choice programs have been "wildly successful," and both of those words are doing a megacrane's worth of lifting. More to the point, they are accepting the DeSantis definition of success, which is the replacement of a public school system with a privatized one.